Partners in Crime
by Acid-Rush
Summary: COMPLETE Lara and Kurtis are separated and on paths to self destruction as they deal with their troubles illustrated in Angel of Darkness, until they realise that they may have just walked away from what was meant to be their salvation.
1. Desperate To Taste Life

**I've been playing a lot of Silent Hill lately, which has left me in a very dark and depressive mindset, so, suffering from writer's block with regards to The Dark Bank Of The River, I wrote this. I don't intend this story to be as long or as complex as The Dark Bank Of The River or No Man's Land, just something to pour my dark ponderings into. If you have iTunes or whatever and aren't averse to my taste in music, you might like to listen to each chapter's suggested soundtrackwhilst reading, or you might like to Google the lyrics, since the songs are all picked to reflect the central message of the chapter. Or, you might just ignore it completely, it's up to you. :-)**

**This is setnot longafter AOD. Lara and Kurtis have parted company with no plans to stay in contact. Lara is still suffering from her scrape with the pyramid in The Last Revelation and Kurtis finds himself without the taste of revenge he wanted on Eckhardt. Lara has been home for some time now but Kurtis, having stayed in hospital to recover fromhis injury, is only just returning.**

**Partners In Crime**

Soundtrack: Nymphetamine by Cradle of Filth - Gothic Rock

_Desperate To Taste Life_

The provocative outfit made her look like a prostitute, and that was exactly what Lara wanted. Walking briskly down the streets of the roughest parts of London at three in the morning, the ponytail high on her head swinging violently with each step, she frequented the alleys and back streets until she got what she wanted. A fight.

She gasped as cold metal appeared at her throat and an arm wrapped firmly around her waist, pinning her own arms to her side. Kicking and struggling, she was pulled back into an alleyway to her left and shoved roughly into a corner between a wall and a fence.

With her head bowed menacingly and her eyes blazing darkly, she got to her feet and spat out the bile-tainted saliva that had risen to her mouth when the knife had been pressed to her windpipe. Her attacker advanced on her, knife raised, ready to subdue.

Crying out fiercely, Lara gave off a vicious arcing kick that knocked theblade from his hand, and leapt on him as he staggered from the blow. He fell to the ground under her weight, raising his arms to his face to protect himself as she rained punches down upon him. He cried out in pain and kicked, his foot catching her inner thigh. Her own cry of pain echoed down the alley and she paused in her attack, leaving herself open long enough for him to push her off him and jump to his feet.

Lara was already half way to standing herself when a kick landed on her cheek, snapping her head to the side and sending her falling sideways, her arms out to break her fall. Another kick was forced to her stomach as her knees hit the floor, flipping her over onto her back and drawing a scream of pain from her.

Recovering quickly, she flung her arm to the side and clawed for the knife, realising at the last moment that the rapist was about to bring his heel down on her ribs. She rolled to safety, simultaneously lengthening her reach enough to snatch the knife up. As her opponent staggered from the sudden loss of his foot's target she rolled again, ending on her knees and jumping to her feet. Expertly, she threw the knife, missing his ear by inches and knocking him off guard, leaving him open long enough for her to attack with a spinning kick to his shoulder, then a straight one to his side as he fell, and then she dropped to her knees to straddle him where he hit the floor and rained blow upon blow to his head until he finally blacked out.

Breathing heavily from the exertion, she got unsteadily to her feet, glared at her unconscious assailant and, leaving the knife in the alley, took off at a run.

* * *

The door to Kurtis' apartment swung open and he took one step into the room. Dropping his shoulder, he let his bag slide down his arm to the floor, and stood, looking around the room. A sigh escaped his lips - one much like that of someone returning from their vacation, disappointed to come back to their normal, every day lives where they hated their job and didn't get paid enough and their social life was stale - and then he kicked the door shut behind him.

His hand swept across the top of the stereo, wiping away weeks of electrically-attracted dust, and then he flicked it on to the preset radio station and moved to the window. He swept the drapes aside and sighed again at the view that greeted him. An unremarkable city view of tower blocks and billboards and scraps of blue sky with the occasional fluffy cloud. An unremarkable view whose only change since his departure was the swapping of the billboards to more current ads.

He sighed and flopped into a chair.

It was whilst he was at the trash chute disposing of the rotten food left from his refrigerator that he met his new neighbour. He straightened up and turned at the tentative 'hi' from the girl peeking out from behind her door, attracted enough by the unfamiliar sounds of the next apartment to come and meet the mysterious occupant who hadn't been home since before she'd moved in. One look at her face and he ran a hand through his hair, smiled, and within two hours was screwing her.

In the short time beforehand, sat on her sofa and smiling and nodding periodically whilst staring at her cleavage she'd told him about herself, but by the time he marched out of her apartment still buttoning his shirt and without a backward glance, he still hadn't bothered to register her name.


	2. Moving In Shadow

**Sorry about the wait, people. Real life has been getting in the way now that I'm looking for a new job. Humbug.  
It looks like I found the secret to a ton of reviews - don't update for ages! LOL ;-) 'Fraid there are too many reviews to reply to all individually so,  
Thanks to everybody who reviewed, they are received with much appreciation. It's nice to know that this story directed a few new readers to my other work. I certainly plan for this story to be as dark as most of you said it seemed, and I'm rather amused by the number of you who expressed a wish to be Kurtis' neighbour!  
Yamiskoi - You asked why Lara was dressed like a prostitute - the reason was that, looking like that, she'd probably be more likely to attract an attack so that she could get into a fight without any guilt about actually starting one.**

Soundtrack: Attitude by Hardknox - Hard Dance

_Moving In Shadow_

A few days later, just out of the shower, clad only in jeans and tugging at his wet hair with a towel, Kurtis strolled out of the bathroom and across the open-plan studio lounge, CNN left on the TV in the background.

"_And finally, in San Francisco, the stars are arriving ahead of tomorrow's Mythology Alive exhibition, a charity museum-opening at the Exploratorium Museum promising to showcase the very best in ancient history. Everyone who's anyone is going to be there, contributing portions of their fortunes to a variety of humanitarian causes through donations and high price auctions with lots ranging from a genuine Grecian vase to a patronage plaque in the museum foyer. The exhibition is expected to mark the first public appearance in two years of the renowned adventurer and amateur archaeologist, millionaire-ess Lady Lara Croft."_

Hearing the familiar name, Kurtis stopped and watched the newsreader from his position behind the sofa, absently stilling the movements of the towel against his head but leaving it raised high. Film of said Ms Croft replaced the smiling newsreader, showing Lara shunning the media as she hurried out of an airport, and Kurtis began to towel his hair again.

"_Since an accident in Egypt just over eighteen months ago that saw her presumed dead for a time, Lady Croft has shied away from the public eye, a condition exacerbated by a suspicion of murder placed on her by the Parisian authorities just three months ago. Lady Croft has since been cleared of all charges."_

The newsreader returned, smiling widely and shuffling her papers.

"_Planning a blow-out weekend for this Labor Day? Let's check out that weather – "_

Uninterested in the weather report, Kurtis grabbed the remote control from where it lay on the arm of the sofa and flicked the TV into standby.

"What's she planning on stealing this time, then?" Kurtis muttered to himself as he crossed to the kitchenette. He threw the wet towel into the washer and pulled a clean shirt from the dryer, slinging it on but not bothering to tuck it in or button it up. Bare feet and mussed hair ignored, he opened the refrigerator and took a swig of orange juice, directly from the carton.

The doorbell rang, so, carton still in hand, he swung the refrigerator door shut and went to answer it.

"Hey," he greeted with the sexiest smile he could muster as the door opened to reveal his neighbour.

"Hi," she returned, fiddling nervously with the numerous rings on her fingers. "I've not heard from you in a while, so I thought, 'Hey, I'm goin' out for sushi, maybe Kurtis wants to come'." She smiled brightly, but it quickly faded as Kurtis only stared, what little confidence she had around him disappearing completely. "So…," she continued uncertainly, "here I am…asking if you wanna…come for sushi."

"Do you have the internet?" Kurtis asked, ignoring her question completely.

"Er…yeah."

"Can I borrow it? For like, half an hour? I cancelled my broadband when I left and I haven't gotten reconnected yet."

"Ok…sure. You want it now?"

"Yeah, that'd be good. Maybe we could order in that sushi, huh?" He stepped out of his room and shut the door behind him, motioning for his neighbour to go ahead and open her own door. "Say," he said, following her inside, "what was your name again?"

* * *

"Here you go," Lucy smiled as she set Kurtis' order of sushi down on the desk next to her laptop. He looked up from the screen, flashing a quick smile of thanks, and took a hungry bite as he continued to navigate the web pages. 

"So," Lucy began, pulling up a chair and sitting next to him with her own lunch, "what are you looking at?"

"Just reading up on an exhibition down in San Francisco I'm thinking of going to. A friend of mine's going to be there."

"Oh yeah?" Lucy asked, interested.

"Yeah." Kurtis offered no more. He looked over a couple more web pages, fingers quickly manoeuvring the mouse as his eyes scanned quickly over the write-ups accompanied by digital photos of museum exhibits. His vision caught onto something and his lips parted slightly in concentration as he read the article in more detail.

Quickly, he closed off the explorer window and stood, sliding the chair back under the desk and picking up one last bite of sushi with his fingers.

"Thanks, Lucy," he said, delving his hand into his jeans pocket. "I gotta go, ok? Thanks for lunch." He pulled a note out of his pocket, found it to be a ten-dollar bill, and pressed it into Lucy's hands, giving her a hurried kiss on her lips. "See y'around."

His neighbour stood there, slightly taken aback, as he marched out of her apartment and swung the door shut behind him with a bang, not another word or glance.

She smoothed the bill out in her hands, sighing despondently, and then looked to the computer thoughtfully. Deciding it wasn't an invasion of privacy, she opened up the web page cache and looked at the last page viewed. It was a page from the website of the Exploratorium Museum, showing an article and a picture of a small stone figurine, rectangular and monstrous.

'_The Mayan god Buluc -Chabtan,' _the photograph caption said, _'this idol is said to contain the encoded map leading to a temple containing a legendary Mayan dagger that can control the god himself'._

Lucy's brow furrowed, not understanding why the article was apparently significant. Breathing out noisily, she flopped back in the chair and, fed up, took a mouthful of the remains of Kurtis' food. "Yeah," she moaned to her apartment, "see you around."

* * *

Lara's eyes, dark and narrowed, slid left and then right, taking one last check before implementing her plan. Finding the corridor around her still empty and darkened in shadows, she swiped her stolen key-card through the electronic lock forcefully, swinging one of the double doors wide and stepping inside, swinging it shut again behind her and helping the way with a sharp kick of her heel. 

The gallery in front of her was dark save for emergency exit lights at either end, and one above her, and small round security lights set into the ceiling at intervals, sculpting the room in shadows. The moon shone in through the large paned windows along the exterior wall opposite her, bathing in silver that which was not in shadow.

She had excused herself from the museum charity dinner, taking place before the exhibition was opened to the guests, a little earlier than planned. She hadbarely beenable to stand five more minutes in small-minded conversations with company that she perceived as excessively stupid, smiling falsely to create the fake impression that she was enjoying herself and actually interested in what they had to say. She rolled her eyes at the thought of them back there, thinking she had gone to the bathroom, chattering away inanely. If all went to plan she'd be back with them in less than ten minutes, a nice short window not at all questionable as a bathroom trip considering that they'd probably think her touching up her makeup, straightening her dress…she didn't want to go back at all, but unfortunately it was necessary to avoid suspicion.

She was dressed properly for the occasion – a midnight blue velvet evening dress fitted attractively around her upper body with long tight sleeves and a low back, the wrap around skirt flaring out across her hips and gathering in folds around her ankles, flowing and long with a slit up one leg.

With a sharp, practised tug, she tore the skirt clean off the waistband, tossing it carelessly to her side, revealing the body of the dress to be in fact a tight high legged leotard, the skirt fixing on seamlessly by studs and Velcro. A beautiful evening dress for dinner, an unrestricting dark coloured leotard for burglaries. She smiled, pulled a pair of glasses from a holster on her thigh and put them on, and then stepped forwards, the short stiletto heels of her boots tapping noisily on the hardwood floor.

The glasses made the security lasers easily visible as red, flowing beams crossing the floor. She smirked at what, to her, was sloppy security. They were far too easy to negotiate.

A simple step over one at ankle height, a fluid duck under one at chest height and then a more laboured step over another in line with her knees. The glass case now in front of her didn't contain what she wanted and so, not even pretending to herself that she was interested in its contents, she simply laid her hands on the top of it level with her shoulders and slowly, easily, starting with a little push off the floor, lifted herself up onto it. Crouching there, one knee bent to the floor and her hands flat to steady herself, she looked left and then right, smiling again as her eyes fell on her prize, in a case further down the gallery.

She walked lightly along the display case, careful not to set off the almost certainly present sensors that would trip the alarm if the case was knocked or banged too harshly. The cases were close together in one long line, making crossing them easy. She stepped onto the next one, crossed it, and then stopped at the end. The following case was far lower with a laser passing between the gap, making hopping down risky. She thought for a second, took a couple of steps back, moved forwards into an easy hand-stand with her hands on the edge of the case, and then allowed her legs to tip forwards, her back arching over the laser with the smallest of clearance and her feet touching down on the next glass cover almost soundlessly before taking her weight so that the rest of her body could follow.

Three lasers now stood between Lara and her goal, passing between the two cases as before but this time at three different heights, blocking her path. Walking forwards across the case, she glanced up, saw what she needed, continued on towards the lasers without hesitancy and then jumped up and took hold of the shielded fluorescent strip light above. Showing tremendous strength and control, she lifted her legs up to hook her ankles around the light further down, shimmied along to the end so that her head was above the lasers, and then let go with her hands, her upper body swinging downwards and the top of her head missing the top laser by inches. Swinging slightly as she hung upside down for a moment, she reflected that it was fortunate that her hair was up in a secure French twist and not flapping around in her usual plait.

She flattened her palms against the glass case then and unhooked one ankle, bringing her fishnet stocking-ed leg down to take some of her weight before letting the other follow, ending with her body arched into a bridge and then lowering herself into a sitting position.

Lara crossed her ankles, leant back on her elbows and considered her next move, looking down into the case at her prize below. There were lasers around the side of the case and crisscrossing the room, the reason behind her gymnastics, but now she was on top of her goal there was no security to worry about. Getting to her knees, she pulled a small folding glasscutter from the same holster that had held her glasses and quickly, neatly cut a circle out of the top of the glass directly above the artefact she had her eye on. Reaching in, her lips curved into a smile as her fingers closed around it, and when she brought it out to look at it, the smile became a grin. In her hands was the idol of Buluc-Chabtan.

"That…was really sexy," said a deep male voice.

Starting, amazed that she hadn't heard anyone enter and terrified that she'd been caught, she spun round towards the man.

Kurtis.

"You!" Lara spat.

"Hey, Lara," he smiled, stooping down to pick up her discarded skirt from his position by the main doorway. He looked it over and then glanced back to her, his eyes moving as he looked her over in the dim light. "I think I definitely prefer this skirt separate."

"What are you _doing_ here?" Lara whispered harshly.

"Seeing what you're up to," he replied with mock earnest, and then, "Need a hand there?" He produced his own key-card and swiped it through a lock on the wall, the lasers immediately disappearing as a result, leaving Lara free to walk her way back.

"How did you break in?" she demanded, swinging her legs over the side of the case, hopping down and advancing on him angrily, her finger jabbing in his direction. "And where did you get that key-card?"

"I _broke_ in, which is a concept you apparently more than understand, and I _stole_ it, just like you stole yours."

"Well," said Lara, "you can just break back out again. I'm working." She suddenly noticed his dinner suit and her jaw dropped. "Oh dear god, you're not planning on staying, are you?"

Kurtis smirked, settling back against the wall and folding his arms, one hand bent outwards to accommodate the skirt still hanging from his fingertips. "I thought I'd be your 'plus one'."

"Go to hell," Lara said simply.

"Oh, come on. Everyone here is allowed one guest, and you're all on your lonesome. It would only be gentlemanly of me to escort you this evening."

"Go away," Lara said, shaking her head emphatically. "Anyway, how I am supposed to explain your sudden appearance?"

"Easy. We walk into the dinner with you on my arm, smile, and you announce that your date, delayed by a sudden call from his Japanese office, has only just arrived. The guests don't ask questions, by the time we leave security has forgotten who they let in, and I just seamlessly melt into the whole event."

Lara looked incredulous. "Your Japanese office?"

Kurtis smiled, pleased with himself. "Makes me sound important, doesn't it?"

"You really are something else," Lara sighed, stowing her glasses, glasscutter and the idol in her thigh holster before snatching the skirt back and reattaching it, the flowing material hiding the holster perfectly. "Bugger off." She grabbed the door handle and made to open it.

"Ah," Kurtis said, his arm shooting out in front of her and attaching to the unopened door of the double set, blocking her way, "You run off and I just trip the alarm and get out the same way I got back in, completely undetected whilst you, sweetheart, are caught red-handed." He eyed the suggestion of her figure under the dress. "Or should I say, red-thighed?"

"You wouldn't," Lara spat.

"Oh I would. And besides, isn't the sudden arrival of your date a great excuse to explain the fact that you've apparently been in the bathroom for…" he made a show of checking his watch, "…twenty minutes now? Took you longer than you thought to do that little gymnastics show, didn't it?"

Lara huffed, glared at Kurtis as he smirked smugly, holding his security card hovering just above the slot ready to reactivate the alarms, and then shoved his arm out of her way.

"Come on then," she said through gritted teeth. "If you _must_ ruin my evening."

Kurtis spread his arms in mock defence. "What else am I going to do with my cold, uneventful life if not make yours hell? Drunkenness and casual sex gets very boring, y'know."


	3. Distance

**Sorry to those waiting for a Dark Bank update, but I'd already decided on the beginning of this chapter when I posted the last, and I had to get it written. I promise I'll get back to Dark Bank ASAP. **

**Hey Hey HeyThanks for all your reviews everyone! Yes, I do realise what effect the combination of Kurtis and showers has on the majority of you - why did you think I put it in there! LOL, I just love seeing you all swoon. Hee Hee. I'm _so_ relieved that the gymnastics from last chapter wasn't taken as too drawn out. Hopefully the events in this chapter won't ruin your perceptions of the characters - one person said they were glad Kurtis wasn't coming across as a prat and I'm really hoping he won't do after this! Remember, their motivations are deeper than they may at first appear - that's what the story is all about.**

Soundtrack: Crash 'n' Burn by The Ga Ga s - Balladic Rock

_Distance_

By the time Lara had stalked to the end of the corridor, still seething at Kurtis' intrusion, he had still not joined her.

"Well?" she demanded, spinning to see what the delay was, "are you coming or not?"

Kurtis was still stood in the doorway to the gallery, fingering the keycard he had used to deactivate the security system, a thoughtful look on his face. "You know what?" He reached out and swiped the card, a low buzz starting up as the invisible lasers were reactivated. "Maybe I'll take a rain check." He grinned and held the card out in the vicinity of the nearest laser.

"No!" Lara cried, but he had already let go and the card fell, breaking the beam. A frighteningly loud siren started suddenly, jerking Lara's heart rate up threefold. Kurtis laughed, quite amicably as though he had only played a harmless joke, and then, giving an infuriatingly arrogant salute with a cocky grin, darted off into the shadows, leaving Lara to face the music.

"Son of a bitch!" Lara cried after him, moving as if to give chase but then halting, desperately trying to decide what to do. She turned left and then right, eyes looking everywhere for a line of escape. Letting out a small cry of angry frustration she made her decision and ran, no longer needing to heed the lasers as she hurtled back into the gallery, threw herself onto the top of the end display case and quickly replaced the idol. Praying that no-one would notice the access hole she had cut into the glass, she moved for the nearest window, smashed the lowest pane and leapt out into the dark bushes below, alarms still ringing behind her.

She crouched for a moment, heart racing as she heard the thudding footsteps of the security team approaching. Thinking quickly, she looked around for a large stone and found one nestling in the soil of the border. Snatching it up, not caring about the dirt sticking under her newly manicured nails, she dropped it through the broken window and then ran. Hopefully the security guards, finding nothing missing and seeing a stone on the floor by the window, would put the broken glass down to vandalism that had set off the alarms, giving them no excuse to look further and see the neat hole in the display case or to suspect that Lara may have been involved. If they did, however, she was about to make a very big mistake indeed.

In case an escape route was needed, she had previously undone the lock of the ladies' toilet window and left it open slightly – she never thought she'd be using it to get back inside. She slid the sash window slightly open and clambered through, moving quickly to the doorway and then stumbling out, feigning confusion and loss of balance.

"Oh! Oh My! What's going on?" she cried, one arm held outwards as if blind. "What's happening?"

"Lady Croft?" A member of security stepped forwards, one of two holding back the other members of the dinner party who were desperately trying to see what was occurring in the gallery further down the corridor.

"My contact lens came out," Lara explained, distressed. "I was looking for it for ages on the toilet floor and then this alarm went off…what's happening?"

"It's alright, Ma'am, it's nothing for you to worry about. Please, go back with the other guests to your dinner."

"I can't see," Lara complained uselessly as she and the other guests were eventually coerced into returning to the conference room where their meal was, "I've only got one lens in, my vision is all funny." She stumbled, steadied by the guard.

"I'm afraid your lens will have to wait, Ma'am. Please, return to the dinner." He bundled her off with the other guests, Lara still worrying over her pretend lost contact lens.

Once back in the hall, she allowed someone to help her to her seat and then turned away, miming removing her other lens and then producing the laser-revealing glasses from underneath her dress, putting them on. Somebody asked her if she was ok and she smiled, nodding, laughing that it was a good job that she'd brought her spectacles with her and assuring everyone that her lost lens was no worry, they were only the daily wear type anyway.

Giving one last fake smile of thanks for the concern of the other guests, Lara's fingers dug into the tablecloth, scrunching it up in her hands before she picked up her fork and jabbed it violently into an asparagus spear.

It wasn't until after the dinner, however, that Lara realised just how angry Kurtis was going to get her that evening. She and the other guests were ushered into the gallery for the premiere of the new exhibition and, amid gasps and disbelieving chatter from the other guests all crowded with her around the Buluc-Chabtan idol display, she stood there, chest heaving and fists clenched in barely concealed rage, her eyes fixed on the empty space where once the idol had sat.

That bastard Trent had stolen her artefact.

* * *

It was late night and dark, a rainstorm brewing overhead in dark grey clouds contrasting against the bluer sky lit by the light pollution of San Francisco. Heels clopping harshly against the pavement, Lara walked back to her hotel from the charity dinner, her excessively fast pace driven by the same anger that had prevented her from taking a taxi. It was quiet, only the occasional car driving past over the hill, the odd person wandering nearby along adjacent streets. 

Tense fingers waggling, jaw set tight, Lara glared out across the city as she descended one of the famous and numerous hills. He had stolen it from right under her nose. If she'd had any sense, she'd have punched his _fucking_ lights out the moment she saw him.

She crossed a perpendicular street, noting a figure standing on the corner but not paying them any attention, just passing them by and stalking onwards.

She hadn't left them more than a few feet behind when they spoke.

"You never asked me how I was."

Lara stopped, inhaling and exhaling deeply in an effort to retain control. She turned on her heels, glaring at Kurtis where he still stood on the corner, smoking casually. "What?" she eventually managed to say, curtly, not even showing any surprise that the figure had turned out to be him.

"I'm assuming you found the copious amounts of blood I left behind at the Strahov?"

"Yes. And?"

"You never asked me how I was."

Lara paused for a moment and then laughed. "Kurtis. How are you?" she asked sarcastically.

"Been better." He paused, hesitating whether or not to continue before deciding to do so. "Did you look for me? After you found the blood?"

"I kept an eye out for you on my way out, if that's what you mean."

Kurtis laughed bitterly, turning to look out over the view of San Francisco and shaking his head. He sniffed, took another drag from his cigarette, and then let the smoke out with a short, almost amused breath. Lara stood, waiting, as he shifted around on his feet and fidgeted before taking one last drag and throwing his cigarette to the floor, where it smouldered in glowing orange.

He reached into the bag on his waist and drew out a crumpled scrap of paper and a pen. He scribbled on it and then drew something else out of the bag, securing the folded paper to it. "Here," he said, tossing the bundle to Lara, who caught it instinctively. She didn't look at it, just held it as she continued to stare at Kurtis, slightly confused. "If you still have my chirugai," he said, "I'd appreciate it if you could mail it back to me."

He turned and walked away down the street, hands shoved into his pockets, his foot taking a poorly aimed kick at a crushed plastic drinks bottle lying on the sidewalk.

Lara watched him walk a moment and then turned to the bundle in her hands. The idol of Buluc-Chabtan. Surprisingly, its return gave her no joy. She looked back up to Kurtis' retreating figure, looking thoroughly fed up in its stance.

The paper he'd written on was folded into a thin wedge and tucked between the idol's arm and its body. She took it out, finding nothing more than a postal address for Norfolk, Virginia.

She hadn't wanted to talk to him, hadn't felt in the least bit inclined to ask what this 'chirugai' thing was. The only thing she could think he meant was the bladed disc he'd had, that she'd picked up in the Strahov not far from the congealing pool of blood that had, for a moment, sent her heart sinking as it had confirmed her suspicions. The disc, though, had vibrated when she'd picked it up, dragged her off into the darkness, giving her a brief soaring hope that had slowly faded as she'd got further and further towards the exit and seen nothing more than bloodstains that could have just as easily been one of their enemy's as it could have been his. As her hope had faded so had the disc's orange glow, and by the time she'd reached the snow covered streets of Prague once more it was nothing more than a lump of metal in her hands.

Her expression hardened with the memory. Kurtis was nothing more than a distant figure under the streetlights now. She shoved the paper and the idol into her bag, stomped down angrily on the dying embers of the cigarette, extinguishing them completely, and walked on.

* * *

There was no-one to greet her as she walked through the door on her return to England. Not even the mansion itself seemed to say anything. Or maybe it did and Lara just wasn't interested in listening. 

She'd fired Winston upon her miraculous return after getting buried alive in Egypt. She hadn't been going to. She'd just…done it. She'd got out of the car after managing to hitch a lift home, having re-entered the country illegally as a stow-away because she simply hadn't felt like going to the authorities, and seen her memorial statue. To that day she didn't understand the reaction it had caused in her, but she'd simply marched into the house, paid no heed to his surprise and joy at seeing her alive again, and had told him, in short shrift, that his services were no longer needed and she expected him gone by lunchtime the next day.

Now shutting the door behind her, Lara immediately set about taking care of affairs. Long gone were the times when she'd return from a trip and just sit down with a cup of tea and some chocolate. With an attitude that if it wasn't bedtime then she wasn't tired, she went straight into the kitchen and put her dirty laundry on to wash whilst making herself a drink and moving around the house replacing items she had packed. That done, she went through the backlog of post and then, after paying a couple of bills, decided to finally turn her attention to the idol she'd put in her study.

She looked it over, examining it with her hands and eyes. She picked up a literature list of useful books she'd researched beforehand and went about retrieving them from the library shelves and stacking them on a table. She marked the ones she'd need to get from the library in London and then, without the fascination that she'd used to possess for artefacts, picked up the idol and locked it in her safe.

It was only then that she started on the job that she'd been avoiding. The one that, on the outside, wasn't affecting her at all but on the inside was awakening nervous butterflies in her stomach.

Moving to a cupboard in the panelling of the hallway, she opened the door only identifiable by the gilt handle and pulled out a shoebox. She put it on the floor, kneeling beside it, and removed the lid. Inside was Kurtis' bladed disc – his chirugai, he'd called it. When she'd first brought it back with her to England she'd considered doing some research on it, on the Order that he'd implied he belonged to, wondering if maybe the psychic abilities apparently needed for its use were made possible by the weapon or if they were a genetic legacy of the Lux Veritatis.

In the end, though, she'd just found her gaze flicking from the disc to her screensaver and back again, her fingers tapping impatiently on the keyboard without actually making any keystrokes, her breaths heavy sighs as she found herself unable to concentrate long enough to even start any work. She'd given one half-hearted attempt to control the weapon by staring at it, and then packed it in a shoebox with some newspaper and put it in the cupboard.

Now, she picked it up and ran her fingers over it, feeling the slots along the edge into which the blades retracted, noting once again the complete lack of controls on it anywhere, not even anything to manually extend the blades.

If he wanted it, she thought, suddenly angry, then he could have it. It was no use to her.

She packed the box out with more newspaper on her kitchen table, sealed the lid down with parcel tape, wrapped it in brown paper, used a marker to write the Virginia address in large capital letters, and then picked it up, grabbed her car keys and the list of books she wanted from the library, and left to stop off at the post office.

* * *

Working as a mercenary was all very well as long as you had a consumer base, but though the authorities hadn't managed to make any hard links between him and the Monstrum case, the underworld had been talking and their topic of conversation was that the previously discreet Demon Hunter had gone and gotten himself involved in some pretty messy stuff. Kurtis had called his old contacts upon returning to America and put word out that he was available for work again and so far he'd heard tell that there had been four jobs given to other people that once-upon-a-time Kurtis would have been considered perfect for. Maybe it was a sign that it was time to start afresh and stop clinging on to the past. 

He slammed his apartment door behind him, threw his jacket onto the hook behind the door and dropped a handful of job application forms on to the table. His previous work experience was a bit limited but he could probably find work as a store clerk or something. Working at Starbucks might even be quite nice. Nice easy-going coffee shop, a bit of banter with the customers, regular hours. He wondered what plans Lucy had that evening and if she'd want to go to dinner with him.

Someone knocked on the door and he went to answer it.

"Mr Trent?" It was a courier in uniform, carrying a clipboard.

"Yeah, that's me."

"Got a parcel for ya. Sign here, please."

He signed, the courier produced a square brown paper parcel from behind the wall, and, wishing him a nice day, left.

Kurtis couldn't quite figure out what it was to begin with, so put it down on the table and tore the paper off, removing the tape from the lid of the box underneath and opening it.

His chirugai. No note, no return address, just newspaper packing and his chirugai.

His eyes went to the application forms and back to the weapon. Overcome, he fell back against the wall and sank to the floor. He had never felt so alone.


	4. Drop

**Sorry for the delay - I was on holiday. No prizes for guessing where. ;-) Yes, I know Lara is intensely unlikeable right now, you don't have to tell me! LOL It's the storyline, I promise she gets better. Reviews, as ever, will brighten my somewhat dull life - eternal gratefulness goes to all who reviewed the last chapter. :-) Hugs!**

**Akkon - Thankyou! The idea is that Lara didn't intend to fire Winston at all, but she was all Dark Side after getting buried in Egypt (think Nasty Lara as seen in the opening cut scenes of AOD), took one look at her memorial statue which basically says to herthat Winston and Co. had given up on her, and went a bit mental. I guess it was a bit of revenge, but I don't think even Lara knows fully why she did it.**

**Ms Croft, IPresume- Hey, thanks for keeping up with this! Don't worry, Kurtis escapes Starbucks - though he doesn't exactly end up anywhere much better! >:-) Ooh, by the way, I saw your photo over on LaraCroftOnline - looks like y'all had fun.**

**Mystique1515 - Yessiree! Look, it says, right there in the category, 'Romance'. Just don't expect it to be too slushy, I don't do slushy! LOL**

**NFI - Hey, thanks:-) Why do I get the feeling you don't like my Kurtis too much right now? ;-)**

**Rethink - Hello and welcome! I don't believe we've met before. I'm glad you like my darker approach - apparently I'm incapable of writing anything that might be classed as happy. Hee Hee.**

**Yamiskoi - Thanks! Yeah, I'm very conscious of the fact that heroes, especially in Hollywood, are rather 'perfect', and I like to get away from that.**

**Mira - Hello! Imagine no more, for here it is, in all it's gory detail. LOL**

**harshlightofday - Hey, you! How are you today? Kurtis seems to me to be the kind of person who keeps it all inside, and that's definately how I'm trying to write him here. Whether he's genuine or not in this chapter is entirely up to you to decide, but I think it's pretty obvious which way I'm leaning. :-)**

Soundtrack: Someday by Nickelback - Rock

_Drop_

A month passed, every day the same. Lara would spend the days doing chores and researching the idol and the evenings either relaxing in the house or going out somewhere that would alleviate her boredom without exposing her to too much unwanted human contact. The cinema, or hidden in the corner of a bar with a book, were places she found gave her just enough social contact to prevent her from going crazy without actually having to talk to anyone properly. Maybe it was unhealthy, maybe if she just tried to make a friend she'd magically feel so much better, but if she was honest with herself she rather liked living a completely selfish existence. It meant no-one let you down, at least.

Well, no-one except yourself anyway. Letting out a cry of frustration she swept her arm across the desk, sending the idol falling to the floor. It bounced twice, coming to rest underneath the window in a shaft of midday sun. She used to be so good at this, unravelling ancient puzzles to unlock the secrets of civilisations long dead, but just lately her brain didn't seem to want to do what she told it anymore. No matter how hard she looked she could find no connection between the idol and her research that might suggest the key to the map that legend assured her was contained within, leading her to a dagger that could control a god. It was a tempting offer if only she could work it out.

Blowing at her fringe in annoyance, she leant back in her chair and decided to go and have an early lunch, even though she wasn't hungry. She needed a break.

Rising and moving around the other side of the desk to make for the door, she suddenly stopped dead as her peripheral vision registered what could possibly have been the breakthrough she was looking for.

Lara dropped to her knees and crawled to the idol, gaze fixed on the shadow it projected across her floor. Looking suspiciously like a warped depiction of the stepped pyramids of ancient Mexico, its dark hue contrasted against the winter sun surrounding it. A slow smile spread across her face as she looked at the idol, careful not to disturb its positioning as she lifted it slightly with one finger for a better view before letting it drop back.

The body of the sculpture, carved in relief, held contours that cast a depictive shadow in the sunlight, and when she twisted the idol ever so slightly the shadow suddenly snapped into perfection, the image sharpening to create the unmistakable silhouette of a Mayan or Aztec pyramid.

Lara grinned, and then broke into a laugh. This was definitely something.

She reached out to touch the idol once more…

A shock that could only be described as electric sparked up through her arm from her fingertips as they contacted the statue, reaching her brain and jerking her body as she gasped at the sudden sensation. All comprehension of personal identity, surroundings, time of day, even _existence_ was lost as she found herself immersed in visions.

Playing rapidly like time lapse, the images engulfed her entire being, speeding along with only the swishing of rapidly displaced air to accompany it, as though the visions themselves were corporeal. She was an observer and a participant in one, ineffectual to the surroundings but a part of them nonetheless. She was being swept along a jungle trail, the path sweeping left and right at turns of increasingly dizzying speed until the foliage parted and she slowed and before her was a Mayan stepped pyramid, ancient and eroded, falling under the ravages of time that had only passed since the idol's conception, not before. And then she was moving again, going inside, being whisked along corridors and tunnels with an ever present source of white light that shouldn't have been there, the speed of her movement so fast she could barely comprehend the images - she was in a chamber and rocketing towards a pedestal and then she stopped abruptly but there was no was inertia, no sudden jerk, she was just not moving anymore and the pedestal was in front of her and it was empty, _empty_, there was nothing there, the prize was already gone and it was all happening so much faster now but she knew the place, recognised it, and suddenly she was somewhere else, watching herself in a place she had never been, firing off rounds and skipping backwards to safety and then suddenly she saw herself sitting in a chair working away feverishly at a computer and she was trying to do something, something important, and there was a voice tinged with desperation telling her to hurry up, _hurry up or he was going to die, _and she found she had control over what she saw now, so she looked to see who it was and it was Kurtis – Kurtis! – and he was standing with his gun trained on a snarling dog charging at him from down a corridor and there was only an automatic door between him and getting savaged and that was what she was trying to do, she was trying to close the door, but it wouldn't and -

And then she was gulping in air as if the separation of her mind from her body had left it unable to draw breath whilst the vision had played, and she was snatching her hand away from the idol and cradling it to her chest protectively even though there was no residual pain and she had fallen to her side, her eyes fixed accusingly on the idol.

She lay there, breathing heavily, recovering, thinking.

She knew exactly what was meant to be on that pedestal – she'd been there and taken it already. A purple crystal skull, it had been the surprise at the end of one her easier, unplanned raids when she was a teenager, just starting out. In those days she had yet to graduate to searching for legendary prizes protected by ingenious booby traps and mystical riddles and had just ventured into minor tombs with the aim of seeing if anything had escaped the archaeologists. Unfortunately that time had coincided with – nay, been the _reason_ for – the rejection of her parents, and, being fresh out of the nest and short of money, she had sold many of her relics, the purple skull included.

The other part of the vision disturbed her. Kurtis Trent, back in partnership? Lara swallowed, pushed herself to a sitting position, and bit her lip. Had the idol been showing her a possible future? A certain future? Had the whole thing just been some kind of side-effect from the real vision and nothing more than a fevered invention concocted from the tormented memories of Prague?

Lara laughed, almost at herself rather than to. That's probably all it was – an invention created by her brain thanks to the supernatural invasion it had just suffered. She'd felt a little guilty at – so she thought – losing Kurtis to Boaz, and that's all the vision reflected, her own feelings of guilt. As she had thought she'd lost him from her own inability to properly lead in Prague, she now dreamt of losing him from her inability to conquer a computer. It was classic dream imagery, an illustration of anxiousness. It was nothing.

* * *

With a little professional help, she found him working in Disneyland Paris, waiting tables. He looked bored. For a moment sympathy flared within Lara for Kurtis, standing there waiting to receive a customer with his eyes cast downwards and to one side, staring sightlessly at the richly carpeted floor of the restaurant as his mind no doubt whirred along in idle mode, too bored to even entertain itself with fantasy or thought.

She ascended the carved wooden stairs to the first floor eating area to stand before him, and then attracted his attention.

"Table pour un, s'il vous plait."

He started, jolted back to reality, and then suddenly realised who was standing before him. "Lara?"

She smiled, somewhat condescendingly. "From dashing deadly adventurer to Disneyland Cast Member…" She looked around, sighing insincerely. "Well, at least you're working in one of the nicer restaurants rather than shovelling popcorn in the rain outside. Still, I can think of better jobs here – your cynical air preclude you from being allowed out into the midst of park guests on the Disney high, did it?"

"If you're here for lunch, fine," Kurtis whispered fiercely, "but if you're here just to insult me, would you mind waiting 'til my shift's over so I can punch you without getting fired?" He shot a sideways look towards the maitre d', checking he hadn't been heard.

Lara smiled, almost sweetly. "My table?"

Sighing angrily, Kurtis marched over to a small two person placing and roughly pulled a chair out for her, dropping a menu unceremoniously in front of her with a clatter of cutlery caught underneath. "I do hope I can rely on your continued service for the duration of my meal?" Lara asked, mischief dancing in her eyes.

"Don't count on it," Kurtis replied bitterly. He stalked off, saying a few words to the only other on duty aside from the maitre d', a waitress, and nodded in Lara's direction before disappearing back towards the top of the stairs ready for the next customer sent up from the ground floor entrance.

Laughing to herself delightedly, Lara took up her menu as the waitress approached to take her order.

* * *

Having been called over a while later, the maitre d' whisked Lara's finished entrée away and then skimmed across the restaurant to Kurtis, saying a few low words to him before glaring at the waitress that Kurtis had passed Lara off onto and ordering her into the kitchen for a 'word'.

Kurtis' eyes caught Lara's across the distance, blazing angrily.

"What is your deal?" he demanded in a loud whisper, dodging between the tables as he descended on her from across the room. "Where do you get off lying about Francine?"

"You're accusing me of lying?" Lara asked innocently.

"You told the maitre d' she was rude to you just so you could get me to wait on you!" He leaned in across the table towards her, eyes darting sideways every few moments to check no-one was watching their little exchange. "That was unfair! Francine is a great waitress."

"I didn't like her tone," Lara replied simply.

"Oh that's bull and you know it." Kurtis shoved a menu towards her. "Why don't you just hurry up with your main course, skip dessert, and get out of here before you feel the need to spit on any more of my friends, ok?"

Lara snatched the menu off him, her eyes never leaving his as she suddenly became serious. "I need to talk to you."

His eyes closed, a heavy sigh escaping as his head turned to the side in disbelief. He stared at the wall for a moment, shaking his head at her words as he considered just walking off. At last, he turned back to her. "About?"

"The idol."

His expression never wavered. Not a flash of excitement, no flicker of interest to suggest she'd just fanned the flame that craved his old life of adventure, but neither was there anger or disinterest to suggest that he'd truly settled into his new ways. Lara didn't speak; she didn't know what to say. She had no idea what his reaction told.

"I'm off at six," he said, his tone unreadable. "The park will be emptying by then. Meet me by the waterfall in the caves under Skull Rock. It's dark, it's quiet. You can talk but I'm not guaranteeing I'll listen."

Lara was taken aback by the slightly clichéd meeting place. It wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind. "Why not my hotel room?" she asked, surprised. "Or your place?"

"Well that would imply that we trust each other, wouldn't it?" He took the menu back from her and straightened up, taking a step away from the table. "I'll bring you the chef's special, shall I? And adventurers like you need to stay in shape, so I'm sure you won't be wanting any dessert. Forgive me if I seem rude, but I'd rather spend as little time serving you as possible, as I'm sure Francine felt." He turned and walked away, leaving Lara slightly stunned. Blinking quickly, she bowed her head and busied herself banishing the imaginary crookedness of her silverware.

* * *

It was dark and cold in the man-made caves, and when Lara eventually found the waterfall, its descent down a vertical but rocky face left her damp with splashes that were inescapable from the small wooden bridge over the chasm. The park was indeed emptying, and those still around were too busy getting in last turns on rides to encroach on her space in the silent tunnels of Adventure Isle.

It had taken her a while to find the correct place and it was now ten past six. A part of her worried that Kurtis had been and gone, but she forced herself to trust in the knowledge that even after finishing his shift at six he still had to collect his things and make his way clear across the park.

Staring around, awaiting his arrival, Lara moved to the edge of the bridge and stared down. It was dark at the bottom, filled with frothing water and a good distance down. An irrational thought flashed through her mind, that if he came up behind her and hoisted her over the railing then she'd certainly die, and he'd be long gone before anyone even realised her body was down there let alone made the almost impossible connection to a waiter from Walt's.

Catching her breath slightly at the frightening thought, she backed away.

"Peaceful down here, isn't it?" Not making her jump though no doubt that was what he'd wanted, Kurtis' voice shot out of the darkness, preceding him as he stepped from the shadows into the meagre light afforded by a nearby opening in the rock. "Nice place to relax when you've had a hectic shift, though usually I go sit in the jungle and watch people screaming their lungs out on 'Indiana Jones'." He smirked and Lara hesitated, unsure how to begin.

"I had a vision," she blurted out, somewhat clumsily.

Kurtis rolled his eyes, leant on the railing, took out a cigarette. "What?" he said shortly, feeling around for his lighter.

"The Idol of Buluc-Chabtan gave me a vision; a map. It showed me where I had to go to get something for the quest. Then – then it showed you and me, together, on the quest."

"Well," Kurtis said, staring at the waterfall and blowing smoke towards it where it mingled with the water spray, "must have been wishful thinking on somebody's part. Can't have been the future, because I'm not interested, and if I'm not interested then I'm not going to be going with you."

"It wasn't wishful thinking," Lara said quietly.

"No?"

"I recognised the temple the idol showed me. I raided it a few years ago and took the artefact."

"Great," Kurtis interrupted, sounding bored. "Less work for you now, then."

"Listen to me," Lara demanded, taking a step forward and catching his eye to force him to return his attention to her. "I didn't believe the vision of you, either, but the artefact was a Mayan crystal skull that I sold to a scientologist…I called him to see if he still had it and to ask if I could buy it back. He said no, he was keeping it. So I started researching and spying on him to prepare to steal it back. Kurtis…he's got the skull in a private, secret research facility underneath his mansion – and that lab is exactly what I saw in my vision."

"Not interested," Kurtis said simply.

After a moment's surprise at his short answer, Lara's answer was an incredulous look, eyebrows raised and hands on hips.

"Look – after I got out of hospital, life wasn't working so great, y'know?" Kurtis spread his arms, feeling he had to justify himself. "No-one would hire me for any mercenary work, thanks to, I might add, _you _ensuring that the Nephilim business was nice and messy. I couldn't even get a job at K-Mart, my girlfriend dumped me after two weeks because she said I was being too clingy, so I thought, 'hey, you know what? You were happy in France in the Legion, why don't you go back there? You did the country a service, they'll gratefully give you a visa, and you can start all over on a nice, clean slate'."

Lara was apparently completely uninterested by the hints of Kurtis' previously unmentioned past. "And you decided the best place to do this was the 'Happiest Place On Earth', as they say?"

Kurtis answered with a disdainful conviction. "Yeah. Bodes well, don't you think?"

Lara snorted. "So I dangle this carrot in front of your nose and you ignore it in favour of running desserts, less than a year after you broke into the Louvre and used your Jedi mind tricks to trash the place? You know as well as I do that this isn't your life."

"For your information, the Jedi mind trick is what you use to change somebody's mind, not telekinesis. And actually, yeah, this is my life. I'm actually enjoying it."

"Listen, Trent." Lara stepped closer to him, invading his personal space and shoving her face in his, eyes darting angrily. "I want that dagger. You're coming with me. It's what the idol says is supposed to happen."

"No," Kurtis said, argumentatively, "what's supposed to happen is that I get a pay rise after passing an audition next week to get an acting gig over in Studio 1 hamming up scenes from famous movies alongside the cute, single chick who went to RADA." He smiled condescendingly, turned, and walked slowly towards daylight, leaving Lara standing on the bridge, water still crashing downwards beside her.

"So that's what it's going to be, then?" Lara called after him as he walked away. "Two failures acting out a happy ending for the benefit of the crowds?" It was deeply unfair, she knew, and a last ditch attempt. Kurtis stopped, took a breath.

Then he carried on walking.

**By the way - RADA is the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, a top theatre school.**


	5. Undercurrent

**Okely dokely, here we go.Apologies for theexplicit language in this chapter if it offends you, butit's usedlegitimately as far as the story goes, and this _is_ an adult rated fic. Also, for anyone who's not French and hasn't happened to researchFrench immigration procedures for no good reason, the DRIRE mentioned here are the people who deal with the importation of vehicles.The action gets going next time, I promise. Thanks for reviews, everyone!**

**Mira - The intensity between them is upped even further this chapter, and there _will_ be fights ensuing! Yay! LOL And what's all this about the monstrosity of Disneyland? It's a perfectly wonderful place! Well, if you're not Kurtis, anyway. Hee Hee. :-)**

**Akkon - Oooh I only just escaped your wrath there, didn't I? LOL I'm glad you took the time to think about it instead of writing the story off. Thankyou. I hadn't actually thought about Winston's fate, but I'll try to remember to address it later on.**

**Mystique1515 - Tension building? Oh, the tension hasn't even _started_ yet! ;-)**

**Arakanga - Thankyou!**

**Yamiskoi - Well, it wasn't really that imaginative - I was in Disneyland at the time of coming up with the setting for the chapter! Thankyou, and here's your update.**

**NFI - Oh dear, you don't like this Kurtis? You didn't think maybe his behaviour was justified in light of Lara's treatment? Well, anyway, it's ok - things'll be resolved by the end, I promise.**

**Lara-is-my-rolemodel - You know the scary thing? I _can _imagine Kurtis waiting tables! hits head against wall to dislodge image>**

**Linzi - Why, thankyou! You know, I researched the Legion whilst writing 'Home' and it actually sounds an awful lot of fun! Shame that girls can't join, otherwise I'd probably be off like a shot!**

**Jordana Trent - Thanks for the long and detailed review. :-) I think Lara definately has the upper hand on Kurtis right now, and, due to my wicked sense of humour, she'll probably get some delicious revenge for him leaving her at the museum in San Francisco. Disneyland's permanent happiness is one of the reasons I decided to place him there (originally I was going to have him hosting the Armageddon ride but decided I couldn't torture the poor bloke with that much social contact in his mentally bruised state!) and I _love_ your idea of Karel as Donald Duck!**

Soundtrack: Nemo by Nightwish - Gothic Rock

_Undercurrent_

The small city car roared into the driveway far too fast, stopped a mere two inches from the wall of the house far too abruptly, and then the driver's door was opened and slammed shut again far too forcefully.

Kurtis' foot kicked the tyre.

He stomped up the path, threw his front door open, slammed it shut behind him with a frightening bang and threw his back against it, voicing a protest at the self-inflicted pain.

"Fucking _bitch_," he snarled to himself, hurling his car keys at the kitchen counter that hid just behind the door, where they hit it with a sharp clatter and then skidded across, landing on the floor.

"Fucking _hell_!" He marched around the counter, letting out another expletive as his angry carelessness led to him knocking his arm on the corner, snatched the car keys up off the floor and slammed them down onto the counter with a vengeful force.

"Who the hell does she think she is, that fucking cow?" He threw off his jacket and sent it sailing across the room before kicking over the wastepaper basket in the adjoining lounge area.

Temper abated, he leant against the kitchen counter and let out a long, deep breath.

Lara's arrival had upset him, made that little part of him that he'd almost learnt to ignore kick up a fuss and demand to be heard. After leaving her in the tunnels he'd marched straight off to his car, hoping to work off some of his anger on the journey home, but cars were no good for easing frustrations unless you wanted to cause a pile up on the autoroute, and the forgiving handling of his particular make of vehicle had infuriated him even more as each hard yank of the wheel he gave at corners only resulted in a smooth arcing turn that radiated calm. If he'd had his bike he could've broken the speed limit, cut everything that little bit too close and weaved in and out of traffic with little danger to anyone else, but the damn DRIRE were taking their sweet time over assessing its suitability for permanent import and it was locked up in some government garage somewhere. That was why he had the freaking car – he needed something in the meantime and he couldn't have another bike because that would be like having an affair. He couldn't do that to his beloved motor.

"Who the hell does she think she is?" he repeated to himself. "She comes around here," he muttered as he cleared up the strewn contents of the bin and returned his jacket to the coat peg by the door, "acting all high and mighty, looking down on me. Oh yeah, it all comes so easy for her. She doesn't have to work, doesn't need to earn. She doesn't have to worry about where the money for food and rent is gonna come from, so she swans in here, looking down on me earning my living, screwing with my friends, taunting me, acting like she knows all about me. Yeah, well screw you, Croft, I hope that damn idol kills you."

Finishing tidying up, he set about making some dinner, still ranting. "Does she honestly think I give a damn about her stupid visions and her stupid treasure hunt? Does she? Yeah, well, I'm telling you now, if she thinks I'm gonna help her she's got another think coming. I'm busy. Living a nice, normal life, away from psycho bitches like her."

That night a shaft of streetlight cut in through the partially open blind, slicing across Kurtis' bare chest where he lay half covered by the bedclothes, lying on his back staring at the ceiling. It was quiet outside, except for the occasional car driving past. His clock clicked as the flap swung over to reveal the next incremental number, signalling another minute had passed. Another car went by, the soft beat of a radio spilling out into the street.

He had another lunch to evening shift in the restaurant tomorrow, then he was meeting the other Studio 1 hopefuls for rehearsals ready for the audition on Monday. He was looking forward to it. They were fun, friendly people, and he hoped he'd get the opportunity to work with them. There was a good chance he'd get a part – there were plenty available – and the bosses had said that if they all came up to scratch then everyone would get offered something, even if it was only a supporting role in one of the smaller shows. Either way, it promised more money and more variety than his current position at the restaurant. So why wasn't he smiling? Why was a little part of his heart screaming out for someone to come and rescue him? Why was it screaming out for Lara?

* * *

Lara slouched her way past the shops and restaurants, the open-air stage, and the outside seating areas. The people and music thronged around her, a million miles out of reach as she weaved her way through them. 

She couldn't see a single person without company. Everyone had their families or their friends or their boyfriends or their girlfriends. What else should be expected? It was a holiday resort. People didn't go to holiday resorts on their own. Not normal people, anyway.

A pang of loneliness shot through her, spear-headed by guilt from the childish, snobbish way she had acted in the restaurant two days previously. She should go home, back to solitude and quiet, chase up the purple skull, but she couldn't. The excuse she gave herself was that she wasn't leaving without Kurtis – if the idol had shown him to her then it wanted him too, and she wasn't going to let his delusions of being able to live a normal life like everyone else stop her from getting that dagger. If that was true, the devil on her shoulder pointed out, then why hadn't she confronted him again since? No, she knew the real reason she had stayed. A part of her thought that maybe she could have some fun in this place, find someone to share the holiday with, have a laugh and a joke and chase after them, squealing, as they tore off to a new experience somewhere else in the park in a fit of excitement. A part of her thought that maybe that someone could have been Kurtis.

She wanted to kill him.

A sudden loud cheer erupted from several people simultaneously, and she looked over to her left to see what it was. A crowd of four people were stood around another at a video game in the amusement arcade, clapping and offering congratulations. The focus of their awe turned away from the machine, smiling at his companions and laughing with them. Tall. Longish dark hair. Piercing blue eyes. Kurtis.

Lara's lips parted slightly in surprise, her eyes blinking rapidly. She was overcome – here was her chance, to tackle him about the idol, to apologise for her behaviour, to make things right again and –

and he was looking right at her.

He said something in French to his companions, barely taking his eyes off her, and they left, indicating with pointed gestures that they'd be waiting for him in the bar opposite.

They both stood, just staring.

Smiling wanly, Lara hugged her arms around herself and walked slowly over to him. She glanced behind him to the video game proclaiming the game completed and Kurtis top of the leader board. A slight laugh escaped her – it was Time Crisis, a shooting game. Hardly surprising he'd won, really.

"Immortalised in pixels," Lara said, her words offering an olive branch.

Kurtis folded his arms and leant back against the game. "Yeah, until some twelve year old comes along and knocks me right off the bottom." His own pale smile ghosted across his face.

"I'm…sorry," Lara began. "My behaviour was unforgivable – do send my apologies to Francine."

The answer she received seemed sorrowful, or maybe it was sympathetic. "'Course. Yeah."

Silence pervaded between them for several moments, lost in the sea of music, people and arcade machines, until Kurtis spoke again. "Are you enjoying your vacation?"

"Yes," she replied weakly. "The hotel is lovely."

Kurtis blinked, considering. At last he spoke. "Come on," he suggested, reaching out and taking her hand, pulling her away from the shops towards the quiet lake that rippled gently beside the hotels outside of the park. He smiled and waved to his friends, who accepted his premature goodbye graciously, and strolled on, one hand holding loosely onto Lara's with the other shoved deep into his pocket and his gaze fixed wearily on the ground.

Fingers still loosely locked, they strolled down the man-made river that led off the lake, the quiet serenity of the surroundings contrasting sharply to the noise and crowds of before. A few people wandered past them, ducks floated on the water, a bus swept over the road on the bridge overhead.

"How have you been doing? After…Werner, and stuff," Kurtis asked.

Lara was surprised. "How did you know about Werner and I?"

"I was scanning police communications in Paris finding out anything I could about Eckhardt's movements. The police managed to connect you personally to Von Croy."

"Not hard to do," Lara admitted. "Our connection was well known in archaeology."

"So? Answer my question," Kurtis pressed. "How have you been doing?"

Lara sighed heavily, eyes wandering over to the ducks swimming down the river. "To be honest, not so well."

Kurtis laughed, a hint of regret tingeing the sound. "Yeah, me neither."

"So you _don't_ really like it here, then?"

"I didn't say that," Kurtis replied quickly.

"Look." Lara stopped, pulling Kurtis around to face her. "Just come with me. Obviously you have some part to play in this or the idol wouldn't have shown you, and I can tell that you're not happy here. You're a Lux Veritatis! You have… _strange_ powers! You're not supposed to be a theme park waiter!"

"No! I'm not!" Kurtis shot back, pulling his hand away. "I'm supposed to be a member of the Lux Veritatis, fighting evil and protecting the innocent and all that clichéd crap, but they don't exist anymore, and you know what? Maybe I never wanted to be what I was supposed to, anyway. Maybe I wanted to find my own way. Well now I have! So just leave me alone and let me enjoy it!"

Lara let out a cry of frustration, throwing her eyes skywards as if for some divine intervention against Trent's stubborn refusal to admit the truth. "Oh! You're…you're…you're delusional! You're a stupid delusional…prick! Forget it! Just forget it! Just go home and carry on pretending to be like everybody else. I don't want to know anymore!" Turning on her heel, Lara stormed off back the way they had come, intending to get back to her hotel, check out and leave.

"Thankyou!" Kurtis yelled after her. "Finally, you do what I ask!" He turned and marched away in the other direction, snatching up a twig from a nearby bush as he went and throwing it irately into the river, where it floated a moment before being swept away by a gust of wind.

* * *

Back at her hotel, Lara ran a hand through her hair and swore quietly to herself. She was standing on the balcony of her lake-view suite, staring out over the water to the faux New York skyline of the hotel opposite and the people skating on its ice rink out in front. Some skimmed over the surface of the frozen water easily and serenely, others stumbled and fell, but none of them broke the ice. Behind her, the idol, the cause of this whole painful trip, sat innocently on a table, the light bouncing off its carvings creating a shadow that inched its way towards definite form. 

A sudden pounding took up on her door, startling her. Staring behind her for a moment, she frowned as she wondered who it could be and then hurried to answer it. Opening the door slightly, it was thrown open wide from the other side, and Lara rolled her eyes at herself for not realising immediately who her visitor was as she quickly stepped back out of the way.

"You think you know me, don't you?" Kurtis thundered, slamming the door shut behind him. "You find me here, you look down on me and what I'm doing, you act like you're doing me a big favour by offering me some – "

"Well," Lara interrupted loudly, "obviously I've got something right otherwise you wouldn't be here telling me I'm wrong."

"No! No I'm not here telling you you're _wrong_, I'm here telling you that you're being unfair!"

"Kurtis – "

"You just abandoned me in Prague!" Kurtis complained, standing in the middle of the room staring at Lara with an expression somewhere between horror and disbelief. "I got stabbed! Impaled! Totally run through! I crawled off looking for you – to make sure you were ok, to make sure that Eckhardt was dead, to get your help before I died, and you were nowhere to be found. Do you know who saved me? A certified nutcase from the sanatorium! He found me, took me with him and made for the nearest hospital to get himself institutionalised again because he said it was the only sane place to be with the world as it is, and left me to get stitched up there. And you? Did you even think to check the hospitals? I wasn't expecting you to keep a bedside vigil or anything but it might have been nice to honour our little partnership, maybe let me know how it had gone with my father's _murderer_, say _hi_."

Lara stood stony-faced, weight set on one foot and her arms folded, waiting for him to finish his tirade. "I thought you were dead," she said simply when he had finished. "I went back for you but you weren't there. I picked up your chirugai and it pulled me away. I thought it was taking me to you but the pull faded and I never saw you again."

Kurtis laughed, amazed. "You didn't think it even worth checking! The chirugai and me, the link fades with distance. It _was_ trying to lead you to me, but if I was on my way to the hospital already…I would have just gone out of range." His head bowed and he sighed. He was tired of arguing, tired of trying to fight the loss of the connection that they had seemed to have in the Louvre.

"Of course I would have checked but…" Lara bit her lip, hesitant. She sat down on the bed and drew a hand across her forehead wearily. "After the fight with Eckhardt, I was attacked by his assistant, Karel. He claimed to have been helping me all along. He took on the form of people that had helped me, trying to convince me that he could be trusted. I didn't believe him, it didn't make sense in the light of everything I knew, but what worried me was that everyone he became – they were all dead. I thought that maybe he could only steal the form of people that had died, and when he turned into you…well, I'd just left you fighting a…a monster! You can imagine the impression it gave – that coupled with the blood, your chirugai not leading me to you…"

"The lack of a body?" Kurtis' addition to her list was sarcastic, undermining her logic. Behind him, the idol's shadow snapped into resolution.

"I saw blood stains leading away from the arena, I thought you'd been dragged away by another of those monsters from the gardens or something."

Kurtis laughed again, bitter now. "Oh just admit it – it seemed pretty likely that I was dead and you couldn't be bothered to stick around and do the work to make sure."

"No! That's not true at all!"

"Until of course," Kurtis continued, not listening, "tracking me down served your purpose. Is that really all I'm worth, _Ms Croft_?" He was suddenly angered again, advancing on her as she stood to meet him and then turning away again just as quickly and marching towards the idol. "Is it thanks to this idol that you show up in my life again and not even bother to tell me yourself that Eckhardt is dead? Were you so wrapped up in your latest adventure that you didn't even think to mention _that_!"

As he spoke his last words he picked up the idol and made to hurl it at the wall, but something took hold of him and, eyes widening sightlessly as a breath caught in his throat, he fell to his knees, the idol clutched in a death-grip within his fingers.

_He couldn't feel his body but his view told him that he was standing by one of the transfer coaches ferrying park guests back to the airport, and Lara was in front of him, a bag on her back and a suitcase at her feet, glaring at him furiously._

"Kurtis?" Lara asked, suddenly concerned as she took a step across her hotel room towards him.

_"You're pathetic," she spat at him. "If I ever see you again it will be too soon." She turned, throwing her suitcase into the luggage hold of the coach and then stamping up the steps, suddenly obscured by a crowd of holidaymakers surging onto the bus behind her._

"Kurtis!" Lara insisted, kneeling next to him and touching his arm as he continued to kneel, frozen and possessed.

_Without warning he was suddenly in a conference room, a script in his hands, the director sitting in front of him looking sympathetic. "I'm sorry, Mr Trent – you're not what we're looking for."_

"Kurtis, don't panic," Lara soothed, "it'll be over in a minute."

_He was back in his house, staring round at the tiny living area with the second-hand furniture, the car outside of his window, the strains of an argument seeping through the wall from his neighbour's house and the TV showing the news pictures of a famous young amateur archaeologist found dead in Mexico, the illustrative photo in the corner of the screen showing her brown eyes glistening as her full lips smiled warmly, and he could hear someone crying out in shock and it was a familiar voice and suddenly he realised that it was –_

"It's alright! It's alright!" Lara shouted over his sudden hyperventilation as he came back to himself, gasping and looking all around to shake the momentary disorientation, her hands fighting down his struggling limbs in an effort to calm his panic. "It's alright, it's over."

Finding himself again, Kurtis tossed the idol away across the floor and stared in amazed fright at Lara, looking back at him with sympathetic understanding on her face. "What the hell was that?"

Lara smiled sheepishly, assuming her claims had been validated. "Come with me."


	6. Draw Distance

**...ahem. I may have left this update a little longer than I meant to...like...almost 18 months. Sorry about that. **

**Since I'm sure you've all forgotten what's happened so far - Lara stole a Mayan idol that legend says contains a map to a dagger that can control a god. The idol gave her what appeared to be a vison of her next step - finding a skull that she long ago took from its temple and sold on - and a vision of her desperately trying to save Kurtis, who was about to be savaged by a dog. Tracking Kurtis down to his Job From Hell in Disneyland, she persuades him to go with her to retrieve the skull from its buyer, a scientologist who is currently experimenting on it. **

Soundtrack: She Sells Sanctuary by The Cult - 80s Rock

_Draw Distance_

"It's over there," Lara said, pointing.

Beside her, Kurtis glanced across the street in the direction she indicated and then checked his mirrors before signalling and slowing the car up to reverse it back into a space along the side of the road. Despite it being December the sun was shining down brightly that day in Atlanta, Georgia, and it was warm enough for Lara to agree to Kurtis' insistence that they have the top down on their rented white convertible, the chill compensated for with her silver-grey raincoat buttoned up tightly.

Kurtis moved his sunglasses up onto his head and rested his arm on the driver's door beside him, regarding the row of warehouses opposite.

"So there's a secret lab under there, huh?"

"Hm-mmm," Lara replied absently, reaching back to her black backpack on the seat behind and checking that everything was there.

"So what happens when we've got this crystal skull?"

"The idol will show us where to go next. Probably to get another artefact, and then another and then another. These sorts of things usually start off as wild-goose chases." She sighed in annoyance and then opened her door. Kurtis, glancing up at her movement, pulled the keys out of the ignition and followed.

After the idol had shown Lara the skull she had to collect, and she had realised it was one she had already raided and then sold, she had tracked it down to a rich scientologist who was experimenting on it in an underground lab complex. A couple of months of research, reconnaissance and bribery had got her all the preparation she needed to undergo the robbery.

The warehouses housed the scientologist's source of income, a mail-order book company, a venture that conveniently kept its customers far away from the offices that were only metres above the lab complex built into the extended basements. The downtown location called for some degree of subtlety, and so Lara had abandoned her usual raiding clothes in favour of smart black jeans and a grey top, whilst Kurtis had chosen an outfit of a purposefully scruffy black suit with grey splashes printed on the lapels and a white shirt with no tie, which he hoped would help him pass off any excuses of being a trendy publishing agent that he might have to offer.

The two strode across the street, confidently entering the main building as though they were regular visitors, not even casting a glance to see if they were watched or not.

They both went up the front desk in the foyer, empty save for the one receptionist guarding the door leading further into the offices.

"May I help you?" she asked warmly, turning away from her computer and smiling at them both.

"Yes," Lara said casually, "I have an appointment at ten."

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," the receptionist replied, frowning slightly. "There are no appointments booked for today. Can I ask when you made it?"

Lara's voice took on a darker tone. "Maybe I didn't make myself clear. The appointment is with Mr Franklin." She pushed a $100 bill onto the desk, leaning forwards as she did so to rest her forearms next to it and smiling at the receptionist patronisingly.

"I'm sorry," the girl replied snidely, "but you must have the wrong address. There's nobody of that name here."

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear," Lara continued, her voice daring the girl to defy her once more. "I have business here today." The arm closest to her chest lifted at the elbow to allow her hand to reach inside her coat, pulling back out to reveal the smallest glimpse of a knife handle.

Realising the threat that Lara must have been making, though he couldn't see it from his vantage point, Kurtis was careful to remain motionless and stoic, concealing his flicker of surprise. Lara had definitely been a hardened adventurer in Paris and Prague, and she hadn't exactly kept her harsh words in the café hushed, but he hadn't realised she could be so ruthless to an innocent youngster barely out of their teens.

The receptionist swallowed, leaning back into her chair away from Lara.

"Who did you want to see?" she asked, her voice betraying a slight shake of fear. It surprised Lara, who visibly lost her cold exterior, to be quickly replaced by one of indignation.

"Just open the door," she demanded, her voice tinged with amazement at not being obeyed.

"Well, if you tell me who you would like to see, I can check – " the receptionist began, but, losing all patience, Lara sighed, took a step back and pulled a gun from the back of her waistband, training it with practised effortlessness at the woman's head.

"Open the door," Lara said again.

Shaken beyond her courage, the receptionist pressed a button out of sight under the desk and the doors leading into the body of the building slid open.

Lara's eyes flicked towards the movement, noting that her goal had been achieved, and then returned to the receptionist. Slowly, gaze and aim not wavering from the employee, Lara side-stepped into the doorway until she was blocking it from sliding shut again once the button was released. Her finger began to calmly tighten on the trigger.

"Lara!" Kurtis leapt in, halting her actions. "Leave her!" He frowned at her, dissatisfied with her intentions.

"The moment we're gone, she'll call security," Lara defended coolly.

Kurtis sighed harshly, still angered by her extreme solution to the simple problem.

"That's no reason to kill her, for Christ's sake." He marched quickly around to the back of the desk, drawing his own weapon as he did so before landing a glancing blow across the girl's temple with it, sending her dropping steeply into unconsciousness before he hid her body in the women's restroom.

"I'm assuming you've thought of the security cameras that recorded your little indiscretion back there?" Kurtis asked slightly sarcastically as he joined Lara in the doorway and together they began to march down the inner corridor, the door sliding quietly shut behind them.

"Mr Staten needs to learn that money buys loyalty. If he didn't scrimp on wages so much his surveillance officers wouldn't be so inclined to watch old CCTV tapes instead of live feeds in order to put food on the table."

"You bribed the CCTV guys?"

Lara just smiled coldly.

Taking Lara's lead, Kurtis followed her down the empty corridor. It was quiet, the only sounds being muffled conversation from behind closed doors, or the soft tapping of fingers on a keyboard from behind an office door ajar. The linoleum floor beneath their feet reflected the fluorescent lights in distorted pools of white and orange as the polished glass of the book cover artworks hanging at intervals along the walls added their own distortion to the reflected images of the two passing burglars.

The dull grey doors of an elevator stood still and silent up ahead at the turning point of the corridor. Lara approached purposefully, reaching out and pressing the call button. The car already waiting, the doors slid open with a soft swish.

Not speaking, the two stepped inside and the doors slid shut.

"First basement level," Lara said simply and Kurtis obliged, pressing the button. The one next to it was marked 'Lower Basement', and required a key. He guessed that was where the lab was and it looked like they didn't have the key. He would have asked, but he got the impression his questions wouldn't have been welcomed.

He shot Lara a sideways look as they descended, slightly curious as to the reasons for her unsociable manner. She was just stood there, hands clasped loosely at her front and eyes forward. He looked her over, noting her calm, efficient stance and then returned his own gaze to the doors. He didn't really know her that well but she still seemed different somehow. Dead.

As the doors slid open to reveal rows upon rows of darkened shelving bursting with books, the two stepped out and Kurtis followed as Lara silently led the way. Alerted by their movements, the lights overhead flicked on as they passed, and then began to extinguish once again one by one, unneeded. They stopped at a green door marked 'Stairs', and Lara moved as if to open it but stopped and stared at her companion.

"The stairs lead down to the lab but the entrance is guarded. How we'll get past that, we'll just have to see, but for heaven's sake, be quiet."

Kurtis nodded his understanding, and they entered the stairwell. As in most buildings, it was concrete and stark, leading up as well as down, and seemed to be deserted. Moving slowly, keeping their footsteps as quiet as possible in the echoing tower, they moved down the two last flights of steps.

Rounding the corner at the bottom to double back on themselves, they were met with a glass wall surrounding a fully glass door, the entrance into the labs. "Shh!" Lara warned, but Kurtis had already noticed that the guards inside were facing side on to them to have a conversation, and he had already ducked back behind the wall.

"That glass is bullet proof," Lara said, "I know that much. Other than that, all I know is the layout inside. The warehouse upstairs is as far as I managed to get on reconnaissance."

"We're going in almost blind?" Kurtis whispered harshly.

"Well if I'd been able to get in there already, I'd have taken the skull then, wouldn't I?" Lara glared and peeped back around the corner, Kurtis leaning around above her from his vantage point on the third step up. "It's locked from the other side electronically. The regular workers in there have keys to take the lift, everyone else has to knock on the door, show their ID and then the guards let them in." Lara eyed the doors of the same lift shaft they had taken, leading directly into the labs and frustratingly close, just on the other side of the glass partition.

"We can't shoot our way through or kid our way through and we don't have a key," Trent said. "I guess it's the old cliché failsafe, then, huh?" He pointed to an air conditioning vent high up on the wall that was adjacent to the glass. It was too small for him, but if Lara could squeeze into it then she could open the door from the other side for him.

Apparently reading his thoughts, Lara spoke. "I might just about fit in there – I'm sure it opens up a little on the inside." As she looked at Kurtis, he grinned to himself and then thrust a flattened palm into the air. Lara jumped back, startled and momentarily thinking he was aiming for her head, but then a crash brought her attention back to the labs and she saw the guards staring in surprise at a large decorative plant pot that had seemingly toppled of its own accord, smashing and spewing soil and broken pottery all across the small foyer area about ten feet from the door. Words of amazement filtered through the wall and the guards moved from the door, one pushing open a nearby cleaning closet and retrieving a dustpan and brush. Awed, Lara looked back to the Lux Veritatis, looking decidedly delighted with his own mischief. Of course – he'd pulled the same stunt in the Louvre.

"Quick," Kurtis urged, gesturing Lara forwards. Suddenly realising that she didn't have much time to get into the vent before the guards were back at the door and liable to notice her movements, Lara darted forwards. Before she could coordinate his help in gaining the extra height she needed to reach the duct, Kurtis's hands grabbed around her waist and hoisted her up. She reached for the covering and struggled with it for a moment, but it thankfully gave and Kurtis let her drop back to the floor where she quietly placed the cover on the concrete before bracing her foot in his waiting cupped hands and pulling herself into the vent. It was an uncomfortably tight fit and she had to force herself inside, feeling the walls pressing unforgivingly against her joints as she tried to bring her arms back in to her body. She couldn't and so, arms outstretched forwards and her legs trailing almost uselessly behind her, she had to resort to inching along with her fingers and toes.

The route she needed branched off to the right, so she took the extra room afforded by the turning to get more comfortable and crawled onwards to the opening. Down below, the guards were out of sight, presumably to her right. She swore quietly to herself and then started as she felt something tickling her forehead and nose. She brushed at it quickly, gasping. It felt like a spider; she hated spiders. Frowning, she realised there was nothing there. Oh well, Lara thought to herself, it was probably just her nerves playing tricks on her.

Before she could dwell further on what she should do now that she was blind as to her enemies' movements, two cries floated up through the grating, quickly followed by two thumps. Then, silence. Confused, Lara strained to see anything noteworthy from her position and, failing, risked pushing off the covering and poking her head out.

The guards were lying unconscious in the middle of the dirt, broken pottery and loose leaves. Another one of Kurtis's tricks? She leaned out a little more and saw Kurtis leaning against the glass, smiling smugly at her.

Self assured bastard. She scowled back and then quickly broke the eye contact, scuffling back into the vent, turning around at the junction behind her, and then slipping out into the foyer feet first. Both the guards had key cards hanging around their necks, and she took both before using one to let Kurtis in and holding the other out to him. "Thank you," she said curtly. "Take this, it should get you access to most places if we're separated."

He looked at her, but she was still refusing to meet his gaze. Instead, as soon as he took the card from her, she wordlessly set about stowing the guards in the cleaning closet. Kurtis watched her for a moment, deciding not to tease her about her antisocial mood or perpetual state of over-independence, and then fell into step with her as she began to head purposefully down a hallway.

"So where now?"

"According to the plans, the skull should be in an electron microscopy lab somewhere down here."

"What does this guy want with the skull anyway?"

Lara shook her head. "Evidence of aliens or reincarnation or…something. I'm not sure. I don't really care, I just want it back."

"Ok." Kurtis let the subject drop and went back to scanning transparent sliding doors as they moved down the hallway, looking for an appropriate sounding name. Most of the labs had scientists and technicians working away, but they weren't paying attention to who was passing by outside and most had their backs to the doors anyway.

"Here?" Lara stopped and turned back to Kurtis, seeing him leaning against one of the glass doors they'd just passed and tapping the frosted lettering with his knuckle.

'Electron Microscopy 2'

"Ah." Lara smiled. "Let's try in there."

Her grin widened as Kurtis hit the button to open the door and she looked inside. The lab was empty and there was a picture of the skull displayed on a monitor next to what looked like microscopic images. She crossed to the main apparatus that dominated the room and looked it over. Finding what appeared to be the chamber for the specimen, a look of annoyance crossed her face.

"It's not there," she cried. "There's just a purple slice of something. They'd better not have destroyed it." She slammed her hand against the desk, visibly fuming with anger.

"It's probably just a thin sample," Kurtis offered, sliding drawers open and shut as he searched for their prize. "The skull is probably here somewhere." Lara joined him in his search, finding one filing cabinet locked and then rifling around for the keys.

"May we have your attention, please. All employees are asked to go to and remain in their 'home' laboratories until further notice. Will all employees please wait in their 'home' laboratories until further notice. Thank you."

Lara and Kurtis looked up at the intercom announcement and then looked to each other. "They know we're here," Kurtis said, returning to his search with even more enthusiasm, no longer bothering to replace things as he went. Lara's fingers closed around a set of keys in a desk drawer and she tried them in the cabinet, successfully unlocking it and sliding the drawers open one by one, ignoring the printed notice to close each drawer before opening another.

"I've got it!" she called as she opened a box to find the skull staring back at her from a bed of polystyrene balls. "Let's go!"

"Let's not." Lara looked up, confused, at Kurtis's words. He was staring grimly out of the door down the corridor opposite, his gun drawn. From the partial view of the stairs at the other end, approaching armed security guards were in sight, preceded by dogs straining at leashes. Kurtis's' free hand blindly slapped at the button to close the door, but its electric glow had gone from green to red and the door remained open.

"They must have locked the door to 'open' from a mainframe," Lara realised, her eyes wide.

"Yeah, well I don't know anything about computers, so I sure hope you do."

Lara's gaze darted between Kurtis's, still locked on the approaching dogs at the end of the thankfully long corridor, and the computer. Leaping into action, she threw herself into the chair and began to try to hack into the network.

"Lara, hurry up," Kurtis warned. He moved to a firing stance and trained his gun on the approaching dogs.

"Can't you do something with those powers of yours?" Lara cried, desperately trying to stay focused as she fought to recall what little she knew of hacking.

"If I force the door it'll probably short out and won't lock at all." Kurtis's voice was steady, low, used to action and calm in the face of danger. At the other end of the corridor, the dogs strained against their keepers, an unruly rabble of teeth and claws.

"Well you'd better do something," Lara retorted, "because I can't do this in time. There's no way; _no-one_ could do this in time."

"Then think of something else!"

The dogs were released from their leads and rushed away from their owners, baring down on Kurtis with their teeth bared and yelping and barking like a crazed pack of wolves.

"Hurry up!"

"I'm trying!"

"_Hurry up._ Hurry up or I am _going to die!_"

Gasping, overcome with déjà vu, realising that she'd seen all this _before_, Lara felt herself move almost in slow motion to turn and look over her shoulder. There was Kurtis, unmoving and waiting until the last possible moment to fire, knowing that he didn't have enough bullets to win anyway, and there was the lead dog, ahead of the others, snarling, gnashing, barking, eyes wide and crazed with bloodlust and –

The biohazard alarm. Next to the door, there was a biohazard alarm. Lurching forwards, crying out in her desperation as the dog rapidly closed the last few feet before it was within jumping distance of Kurtis, she fell forwards and slammed her hand into the alarm.

Immediately, deafening sirens took up, a loud extraction fan began its pulsating deep beat of blades that hurt their eardrums, and a solid metal containment door shot down out of the upper doorframe and crashed into the floor below. Kurtis jumped back in surprise, eyelids flared and mouth gaping as he panted sudden deep breaths of relief. A crash signalled the arrival of the dog, unable to stop before it collided with the shield.

Kurtis looked to her, amazed.

"Nice one."

Lara flashed a quick smile, and then turned her attention to their escape. "The extraction fan must be ducted separate to the rest of the ventilation and must take a quick route outside," Lara said. "If we can stop the fan, we might be able to go out that way."

Kurtis replaced his gun in his inside pocket and promptly punched the air in the direction of the fan. It clattered loudly, still spinning even as it fell from its setting and beating against the inside of the ducting before coming to rest against the wire mesh covering of the duct.

"Alright," Lara sighed, "let's just find a way to get inside, and we can be back at the car and escaping down the highway in no time." She smiled at Kurtis, the first proper smile he'd seen her give, and moved to the fan.


	7. A Mile Away

**Another update so soon? Am I ill? Hee Hee.**

_A Mile Away (Smile Like You Mean It - The Killers)_

"So what now, Lara?" Kurtis darted forwards to get in front of her and block one of the fire doors that periodically separated the hotel corridors. She stopped and stared back at him, meeting his raised eyebrows and slight smile with a look that made it quite clear that he'd just crossed the line that she'd laid for him.

"I'll let you know when I do," was her curt reply. She looked pointedly to the door behind him and then back to his face. Disappointed, he leant back into the glass to open it and walked both himself and the door out of Lara's way. She marched through with the short harrumph of someone who didn't feel the need to give thanks for a deed they were entitled to. Kurtis dashed after her, leaving the door to swing back and forth behind him.

"So I help you get that thing, nearly get mauled in the process, and you're telling me to go back to my own room whilst _you_ figure out what to do with it?"

"Are you experienced in these matters?" Lara asked, still gliding gracefully along the carpeted and deserted hall whilst Kurtis danced around her, trying to walk backwards and face her without crashing into anything.

"Perhaps more than you think."

Lara stopped dead, sighing. Without warning, she shoved her backpack containing the skull into the arms of the man harassing her. "Alright, fine. Let's go back to my room and see what we can do." She marched off again, Kurtis quickly taking chase.

Pulling the band from her plait as she entered the room, Lara threw it onto the bed and teased her hair loose with her fingers as she continued on into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.

Feeling more than a little awkward, Kurtis looked around for a moment before seating himself next to the hair band, Lara's bag in his lap and his hands drumming upon it. Her luggage was neatly placed in the recess built for it behind the door, a few items of makeup and toiletries were set out on the sink and vanity counter that hid behind a short wall just outside of the bathroom itself, and an open packet of biscuits sat adjacent to a small spread of crumbs on the dresser.

The toilet flushed and Lara flounced back out into the main room. Kurtis's eyes darted away from her almost as soon as they had alighted upon her. If she'd used the bathroom to make him feel uncomfortable, it had worked.

"Get the skull," she ordered, unhooking a key from the belt loop of her jeans and unlocking the room's small safe with it to retrieve the idol. She tossed the idol irreverently onto the bed.

The skull joined it, placed into position, and Kurtis looked to his partner for guidance. "You said on the plane that you had the vision when the idol's shadow made a picture?"

"Yes. It must have been a lucky coincidence that you picked it up at just the right moment to have your vision."

"I'm sorry?" Kurtis raised a sarcastic eyebrow. "Did you say 'luck'?"

Lara ignored him.

"Here, let's try it in the sunlight under the window." She took the idol and placed it on its side in the pool of sun that shone onto the carpet. Then, looking around, she spotted her backpack behind Kurtis and grabbed it, pulling out a pen. "We don't want the vision until we're ready for it," she explained, prodding the idol with the pen until it reproduced the shadow of the pyramid that had she accidentally discovered at her home.

Gingerly, she reached out and tapped her fingertips on the idol's side. Nothing happened, so she touched it more purposefully, held her fingers there, adjusted the idol's orientation, tried again. Nothing.

"More than one possible shadow?" Kurtis offered.

"Perhaps."

They turned the idol over, stood it on its end, twisted it through a full three hundred and sixty degrees, used a table lamp to gain a stronger light source – none of the shadows produced looked like anything, and not once did they trigger a vision.

"Maybe we're supposed to use the skull in some way, too." Kurtis picked the two artefacts up and examined them.

"Do they fit together?" Lara asked.

"No…they don't seem to."

Lara stood and flopped onto the bed, lying on her stomach and burying her head in her arms.

"Argh," she complained wordlessly, "I'm trying to remember if there was anything unusual at the temple where I found the skull but it was so long ago."

"You'd think there'd be something to take the guesswork out, right? Some way of knowing just where to put this thing?"

"Like a slot or stand to hold the idol in position, so that when the sun moves into the right position – there you are," Lara agreed, turning over onto her back. "It really doesn't help that neither of the artefacts were in their rightful places."

"No photos or articles on the internet from archaeologists?"

"It's worth a try, I suppose." Lara got up and took out her laptop from its bag with her luggage, setting it up on the table and connecting to the hotel's wireless network. She began to search her usual journal archive websites and started writing emails to two or three of her contacts in professional archaeology and anthropology.

"Hey…is this something?"

Lara looked down to see Kurtis holding the idol up to her from his position on the floor, his fingers indicating something on its surface.

The artefact, as she had already seen many times, was carved in complicated relief, the topology producing its varied shadows under the sun. That wasn't the only decoration, however – numerous line drawings covered the stone, made from shallow channels. There were so many, and of so many different subjects, that it was difficult to remember just what was shown on there from one moment to the next, but given their current puzzle, what Kurtis was now pointing to leapt out as being something of possible significance.

The idol itself was a far more angular and detailed model of Buluc-Chabtan than was usual in Mayan art, but the line drawing on its chest was a more traditional depiction, and as was usual for him, he was shown burning houses and spearing people. However, the torch that was usually his source of fire was instead shown as a skull on a stick, and the fire wasn't drawn as flames, but more as a ray.

Frowning for a moment, Lara took the idol and stared at it. She turned it around, glancing over the other artwork that adorned it, and then went back to looking at the first drawing. Standing suddenly, she shoved the artefact back into Kurtis's hands and snatched up the skull from the floor. She wrapped her hands around its cranium and held it forwards and aloft to the sunlight at the window as if making an offering, her stance instantly conjuring up within Kurtis's mind imaginings of Mayan priests looking much the same, as they used that very skull in bloody and frightening rituals. She turned the sculpture slightly to the left and the right, marvelling at the clarity of its illuminated translucency.

"Hey, look." Kurtis stood, and Lara looked to him before following his eyes. There, pooled on her sternum, was focused light about an inch in diameter. Her lips parting in amazement, she held the skull closer and examined it, feeling it carefully, peering into its depths.

"That's amazing," she breathed. So subtle it was unnoticeable unless you searched for it, Lara could see now that one side of the skull's parietal area was misshapen, and the concave structure of the opposite eye socket was precisely carved, both contours coming together in a feat of engineering that directed all the light that entered through the back of the skull towards one eye socket, where it was perfectly focused into a bright, coherent beam.

Watching, wondering at just what tiny details Lara was marvelling at, Kurtis stood quietly by.

"It's carved so precisely," Lara said to him, quickly drawing the curtains across most of the window to block out the majority of the sun and then standing to one side and carefully positioning the skull to take the thin slice of light still allowed in and focus it towards the bed, where it shone in a rippling circle, "that it just can't be a coincidence. This has to be the answer."

"Told you I could help," Kurtis jibed, setting the idol on the bed and just within the ray's reach. Lara experimentally twisted and moved the skull, directing the beam across the carved surface as Kurtis kept his gaze fixed on the resulting interplay of light and dark.

"Wait!" He held up a hand, stilling Lara's movements. "Wait, I think that's it. Don't move. It looks like a…er…a stepped structure leading up to a building on a plateau with some pillars at the bottom on either side and another stepped structure to its right. Hang on – have you got some paper?"

Lara directed him to her notebook in the pocket of her laptop bag, and he traced the shadow, holding it up to Lara who was still stuck keeping the skull held high.

"The Templo de los Guerreros, perhaps?" she offered, shrugging.

"Only one way to find out." Kurtis reached out for her, offering his hand. She took it, clasping her fingers around his, and with his other, his fingertips contacted the cool stone of the idol.

Their clasped hands involuntary squeezed each other, Kurtis' fingers in contact with the idol straightened and stiffened, shaking with the tension, the skull fell from Lara's grip and dropped to the floor with a dull thud and their eyes, flared wide, stared possessed and sightless. Unaware of their bodies, perhaps not even there, they were whisked across the arid and dry glass plain of a jungle clearing, hurtling towards what Lara saw was indeed the Temple Of The Warriors as it was called in English, dozens and dozens of columns lined up with military-like precision, and then they were within them, darting between haphazardly as they angled across the rows, their hearts racing as every second seemed to foretell an inevitable collision, then the columns were gone and they were racing up the central steps towards the temple itself as if they were floating, then, their sights ever fixed on the crumbling and weathered walls decorated with jaguars and warriors and eagles eating human hearts as the world swung dizzyingly about them, they were hurled around its boundaries before turning sharply, their spins halted with a sickening lack of inertia and they were swept down the stepped terraces towards another area of columns, but these hadn't been reclaimed from the jungle, and the vines and tree roots and plants always seemed to be about to catch them but they never did, and they were propelled forwards, ever forwards, deeper and deeper into the overgrown courtyard until they got to the end, a wall of vegetation in front of them, and they looked down and the purple skull was resting in a perfect impression of its visage cut into the stone floor, and a small trapdoor had swung open and they were going inside it, into the blinding darkness and then that white light was back, and they were rushing along a long stone hallway, rapidly closing in on other versions of themselves, Lara seeing herself skipping backwards to safety as she fired off round after round at an advancing, snarling jaguar whilst Kurtis was desperately smashing a chunk of masonry into a section of wall, over and over again, hammering, bashing, trying to break it, and –

She was alone. Kurtis was gone, she didn't know how, but she just knew; he wasn't there anymore. Then she was rushing forwards again, back out in the jungle with part of the journey missing, dodging trees and leaves in the dark of night, coming upon two figures kissing furiously in the light of a fallen torch, almost warring with each other, and then she was close enough to see who it was, and it was her and Kurtis, and then suddenly –

Suddenly she was in that other version of herself, and everything was…slower. She wasn't being rushed along anymore, it was just happening, but bits of time were missing and somehow everything had skipped backwards a few moments. They hadn't kissed yet. Kurtis was only just advancing on her, his eyes boring into hers in a way that made her almost frightened. His lips touched hers, slowly, softly at first. Then time skipped and they were clawing at each other, her fingers scratching down his back through his shirt as his tangled in her hair. His hands took hold of her head, pulling her closer for a moment – and then his fingers closed around a handful of hair and pulled her away from him and before she could even catch sight of the look on his face he was twisting her around as he pushed her, so hard, shoving her towards a tree trunk, her head making contact with the hard bark in a moment of blinding pain and -

Lara snatched her hand out of Kurtis', finding herself just as short of air as she had been after her first vision. She gulped it in, filling her lungs, staring at Kurtis in accusatory horror. He just lay there, fallen to the floor from his partially crouched position of before, breathing heavily and looking shocked, the hand that she had rejected hovering just above his head. In the vision…he'd been talking to her and then…she'd shot him? She had, she'd shot him. He'd been staring out of a window pouring out the way he felt about her and she'd come up behind him, placed a hand on his shoulder, turned him to face her, held his gaze… and pushed a gun into his gut and pulled the trigger, betraying the moment, mocking his sincerity.

Lara swallowed, unaware that his vision had differed from her own.

"What did you see?" Lara asked, fighting to keep the anger from her voice.

"The Temple Of The Warriors," Kurtis replied, covering his eyes with his hands as he continued to recover, "just like you said. I went there on vacation a few years ago. Didn't see that trapdoor on vacation, though."

"I saw that too," Lara said, sitting on the windowsill. "A jaguar attacking and you trying to break a wall, too. I think me shooting at the jaguar is the other thing I saw in my first vision. It must give glimpses of future danger."

"Yeah, I saw that bit too." Kurtis looked at her, wary. "See anything else?"

"No." Lara shook her head, her reply short, and looked to the floor. "Nothing."

"Well." Kurtis got awkwardly to his feet, wobbling slightly, noting again that visions from the idol were overwhelming experiences. "I guess we'd better book flights." He made for the door, wanting to return to his own room. "I hope you're funding this expedition, Croft, 'cause a flight to the US and a hotel in Atlanta is all I can afford and all I'll pay for." He left, leaving Lara staring at the closed door, blinking slowly in amazement. He really did hate her, didn't he? He was actually going to slam her head into a tree. Well, perhaps she'd surprise him first.


	8. Tunnel Vision

Soundtrack: November by Mythos - New Age

_Tunnel Vision_

Pushing their luggage trolleys ahead of them, Lara and Kurtis headed for the line of rental cars parked outside Cancun International. The perpetual sun beat down on the burning concrete at the edge of their shade under the car park roof, a stark contrast to the duller area in which they walked. Lara's sunglasses were up on her head, holding her hair out of her face, and the loose black vest top she wore fluttered in the cooling breeze.

"I see it," said Kurtis, meaning that he had spotted the car with the registration plate that matched the scribbled card tag on their keys, and he held his hand out for them. Staring at his palm for a moment, Lara dug into the pocket of her loose, short cotton skirt and dropped the keys into his waiting hand. He rushed ahead, and Lara paused, taking in a deep breath, dropping her sunglasses down onto her nose, and finally following him to their car.

All ready to go, she was just about to turn the key in the ignition when a phone rang. Surprised, she looked around, and saw Kurtis retrieving one from his pocket. He flipped it open and answered it.

"Hello?"

_"Bonjour, Kurtis!"_

"Oh, Francine, salut!"

"_Kurtis, is everything alright?" _his colleague from the restaurant asked him in French, and he replied in kind, his voice warm.

"Everything's fine."

'It's ok, let's go,' he mouthed at Lara, gesturing for her to go ahead and back them out of the parking spot. Lara, being a speaker of the language herself, recognising the caller's name, and noting his friendly demeanour, pursed her lips in what was possibly jealousy and started the engine with a hard turn of her wrist.

_"It's just that when you left last Wednesday, you were really angry with that rude customer. Then, I come back today after my week off and I find out that you've been given compassionate leave. What's wrong?"_

Kurtis sighed a little, leaning back into his seat. "That customer was somebody I know, they came to tell me that there was some stuff back in America that I needed to sort out. They were pretty upset over it, I guess they took it out on you without meaning to." His eyes flicked over to Lara, noting her tightly regulated breathing and trembling jaw line. Out of the parking space, she switched from reverse to first gear and almost stalled the car as she stamped on the gas.

_"Rene said that your aunt had died and you had to sort the funeral."_

"Yeah, that was a lie to get him to give me the time off. Don't tell him, huh?"

"_So what's wrong?"_ Francine, always so selfless and concerned for other's well-being. He could imagine her worriedly digging one fingernail under the other as she bit her lip, stood at the phone in the corner of the restaurant.

"It's…family stuff." She'd leave him be. "Look, Francine, I'm not in France so this is going to be costing us both a fortune. I'll call you when I can get a landline, ok?"

She acquiesced, saying her goodbyes and leaving Kurtis to flip his phone shut. He looked to Lara, ready to speak to her, but her eyes were fixed on the road and her body was tense, anger radiating off her in waves. Turning his unspoken comment into an unimpressed exhalation, he turned to stare out of his passenger window, head in his hand and elbow on the windowsill as he watched the scenery pass on the way to their hotel.

Still barely a word having passed between them, they arrived at the ruins of Chitchen Itza from their hotel late that day. The site of several ancient Mayan structures in proximity, every day it was crawling with sightseers. The last few tourists among the ruins were readying themselves to leave, half-full tour buses waited for the rest of their parties to board, and a gradual quiet began to descend on the ancient, silent ruins in the gathering dusk.

"Tourists," Lara sneered as they crossed the grass towards the Temple Of The Warriors.

"Do they have any less right to be here than you do?" Kurtis challenged. The memory of his vision was still with him, and though it didn't particularly frighten him that she was quite possibly planning to kill him, it did sicken him, just as her constant contrary and nasty behaviour sickened him.

"They just…have no respect," Lara defended. "Places like these are so much nicer when they're empty and quiet."

"Oh, get over yourself," Kurtis muttered, striding forwards and leaving her behind.

She watched him hurry away, his hair blowing in the breeze, and her face fell.

Why was she so _hateful_ all the time? Why was she so angry with _everyone_, even people she didn't know? Why was she stuck in such a _damned_ vicious circle? Why couldn't _she_ extend the peace offering to the world and break it?

Her eyes narrowed. Because _she_ shouldn't have to, that was why.

Straightening her shoulders, raising her head, she walked tall towards the Temple, taking her time. Kurtis could wait.

A few short minutes later, she came upon him sitting on the ground, legs bent to his chest and arms resting on his knees, waiting for her at the back of the rows of columns. The Temple had been claimed by the jungle over the centuries, its plants and tree roots knotting around it as though they were pulling it selfishly out of reach from civilisation. Civilisation had responded in kind, cutting the stones free and restoring them as best it could, but the work was not yet finished and the last little area of columns she now picked her way through was still lost in greenery. With nothing different to see, few tourists ventured back here.

"Mind your step," Kurtis said, nodding towards her feet, and she looked down to find herself about to trip over a thick, sinuous vine. She smiled her thanks somewhat guiltily.

"Did you find the depression for the skull we saw?"

"Yeah." He got to his knees, reaching over to a part of the floor and rubbing at it with his fingers vigorously to remove moss and dirt. "It's right here."

"Thank you." Lara joined him on the ground, pulling the skull from her backpack and pressing it into the sunken visage. There was a sound of grinding stone and then part of the floor nearby dropped away, an open trapdoor just as their vision had showed them.

They stared into the shadows. "Very dark," Lara remarked. She pulled a flare from her bag and lit it, dropping it into the blackness. Almost immediately it hit ground, and lay there illuminating its surroundings. The trapdoor dropped down into the end of a passageway, with only one way forward, heading back underneath the columned area. The walls were decorated with carvings, the floor seemed to be compacted dirt, and the faint sound of running water could be heard from inside.

Lara dropped in feet first, landing with the dull thud of boots on earth. Picking up the still-burning flare, she crept down the passageway, Kurtis jumping down behind her.

"Hieroglyphs?" Kurtis asked, staring around at the blocks of small symbols and drawings on the walls.

"Logosyllabics, to be pedantic," Lara answered. "Prayers, I think. Nothing jumps out as being important."

"No symbols for 'death' or 'trap' or 'painful extinguishing of life breath', then?"

"Well, you know, not even the best linguists can fully understand Mayan script, especially given its evolution over time."

"Are you telling me that you're guessing what this stuff says?" Kurtis asked, mockingly convinced that they were going to die.

"It's an _educated_ guess," Lara protested. She looked over her shoulder at him with a small titter.

She could be so easy-going when you gave her some slack, Kurtis marvelled.

The corridor doubled back on itself in a hairpin bend and began to descend deeper underground. The flare flickered for the last few seconds of its life, faded, and then left them in the pitch-black darkness.

Kurtis stared around at the nothingness, Lara in front of him scuffling as she blindly dug in her bag for another light. Her elbow caught him on his cheek.

"Oh! Sorry!" she breathed.

"It's ok." Kurtis was too distracted by his uneasiness to do anything more than place a hand lightly on her arm to give her some indication of his whereabouts.

With a fizzle, they were once again bathed in light, and they continued onwards, the sound of running water getting louder.

"Look," Lara said, holding the flare out further in front of her and quickening her pace to get a better look at the area she had managed to pick out of the gloom.

The walls opened out to a large rectangular area with a slightly higher ceiling and no floor. Instead, the floor of their passageway became a bridge over a chasm leading to a doorway in the opposite, decorated wall. Level with the bridge, coming from rectangular openings along the walls, were fast-flowing waterfalls, the water shooting outwards and arcing down into blackness. They couldn't see, but from the sounds of it, the room was filled with water a good distance down. Two sets of stairs branched off to the left and right, freestanding between the bridge and two platforms that stretched out along part of the wall, each one holding a simple iron stand topped with a shallow stone basin. Climbing up to one, Lara found it filled with the rotting, stained remains of oil-soaked cloth. She was about to light a flare and leave it burning in the lamp stand, when Kurtis' voice suddenly barked a short, Latin order.

"Luceo!"

He threw one hand into the air, flicking his fingers outwards, and a pale, glittering orange glow came into being all around them, reaching into every tiny cranny and illuminating the entire room from its ceiling to its deep, water-covered floor. It was the same light that had followed the active chirugai, Lara noticed, only much, much paler and less invasive. She turned around in circles as she backed away from the now redundant lamp, a look of delighted awe on her face as she stared around at the translucent fog and reached out to touch the sparkles, finding them to be just an illusion, slipping through her fingers, evasive, untouchable. They were so beautiful.

"You didn't react like that in the Louvre."

Broken out of her trance, Lara found Kurtis with his arms folded, watching her with a hint of a smile.

"That was only a little glow. And I was rather pre-occupied with unfortunate circumstances."

He didn't answer her, just blinked and continued to watch. She coughed, uneasy under his gaze, and descended back to the bridge, making brief eye contact as she sidled past him to make for the doorway.

"I've found it," she called back to him, and he joined her.

About two feet tall and just a few centimetres wide, there was a glyph-surrounded window in the wall that looked into a recess. Inside, the top of its head glinting in the orange light just at the bottom of the window, was a pink crystal skull. Too large to be pulled through the gap, the skull was apparently trapped.

The rest of the walls were painted with patterns and pictures of bloody sacrifice, the colours still amazingly fresh, and a few ceremonial statues were set around the floor. Glancing over them, not really comprehending, Kurtis turned his attention back to Lara, who was concentrating solely on the writing.

"What does it say?"

"It's a Shamen's prayer to the underworld," Lara answered, "and a message. 'What you seek lies within these walls, only for those who are worthy'."

"How do we get to it?"

Lara shrugged. "Force? Can you break through with those 'skills' of yours?"

"Ok." Kurtis nodded, taking a steadier stance and motioning for her to step back. "I'll give it a go."

He thrust a flattened palm towards the wall, letting out a small grunt of effort, but nothing happened. Confused, he looked to his hand.

"I don't get it, I can't – "

The click of safeties being taken off pistols interrupted, and he jerked his head up to find Lara aiming her weapons at something behind him. He spun, and his eyes locked on to the tensed muscles and calculating eyes of a jaguar.

Before anyone could make another move, there was the sound of grinding stone, and the open doorway began to shrink as a glyph-covered sliding door slowly emerged from the wall. The sound of a similar movement over towards the skull caused Lara to flick her gaze away from the jaguar for a moment. Through the tall window, a slowly lowering platform inched its way down towards the head of the skull.

"Kurtis," Lara began slowly, keeping back against the wall as she slowly made for the door, guns constantly trained on the cat, "I'll draw it away, you keep working on that wall."

"Lara, the door is closing."

"See that skull indentation on the wall?" Lara asked, nodding her head towards the carving he hadn't yet noticed, "That's your keyhole to get out, but you won't have a key if you don't save the skull before it's crushed."

"And if I can't? My powers aren't working in here."

"Use brute strength like normal people, then."

Still in a standoff with the growling jaguar, Lara approached it carefully and managed to back out of the door onto the bridge. The cat turned, watching her, ignoring Kurtis.

Taking his chance, desperate to get the prize before he was entombed and Lara was mauled, Kurtis spun and once again thrust his arm towards the window with a loud grunt. The movement distracted Lara, who looked up for a second, breaking her stalemate. Yowling, the jaguar sprung forwards, and, reacting, Lara opened fire.

She couldn't have been missing at such close range, but the feline just kept running towards her through the bullets as though it was invincible, advancing rapidly even as Lara was skipping backwards, muzzle flares lost in the permeating orange.

Desperate now, never having felt so uselessly weak before and barely able to keep his eyes from the closing door with the deafening echo of gunshots ringing in from behind it, Kurtis gave up on his inexplicably suppressed telekinesis and snatched up a small statue from the floor, crying out as he attacked the wall with it, hammering and smashing over and over again, causing no more damage than a few shallow chips.

Realising that the animal was about to jump, Lara shoved her guns back in their holsters and leapt for the platform to her right, just managing to grab on to its edge and, frantic, scramble up. She rolled onto her back, arming herself once again just as the jaguar reached the top of the steps, skidding around the corner. Guns still in hands, Lara rolled to her knees and dived for the lamp stand, knocking it over in an attempt to hit or distract the animal.

"Lara?" Kurtis bawled. The platform had less than a foot to go before it reached the skull and likely wouldn't stop. Judging from its speed, he had maybe a minute to break the wall. Whether Lara could survive that long, he didn't know. His frenzied assault on the masonry continued. The door to the chamber began to close its last few inches.

Arms circling, Lara jumped back to the bridge at the bottom of the steps, turning to put her back to Kurtis and opening fire on the jaguar once again as she again started to retreat and her attacker landed on the spot that she had only just vacated.

He twisted sideways as he ran, only just fitting through the thin gap of the doorway that continued to close, cutting off the view of the unbroken window and the waiting skull.

She screamed as the jaguar pounced, sailing through the air towards her. She hadn't anticipated it, hadn't made the first move, hadn't managed to find an escape route from the tomb that she could traverse faster than the evolved hunter. Instinctively, she put her arms up to shield her face – and a strong hand grabbed her wrist, hauling her off the bridge, leaving her body swinging through the air towards the platform opposite the one she'd just left, hanging precariously from the grip of someone perched upon of it.

Pray swept away from under its nose, the jaguar missed.

Opening her eyes, Lara looked up to find Kurtis lying on the platform, both of his hands wrapped around her right wrist, his face grimacing as he held her weight. She dangled above the drop, waterfalls around her plummeting down the dizzy height to the pool below.

She stared at him, shocked for a moment, and then came back to her senses and, panicked, looked around for the jaguar.

"Where did it go?"

The door to the chamber was closed, the jaguar was gone.

Kurtis' tone of voice matched her confusion. "I don't know."

He pulled her up, Lara swinging one leg up to help herself along, and both of them collapsing onto the ledge.

"Did you get it?" Lara asked, breathing heavily.

Kurtis shook his head. "No time. You were in hot water."

Lara's face fell. Closing her eyes in regret, she was about to bemoan their necessary loss when once again there was a sound of stone rubbing against stone, and she stared, astonished, as the doorway slid open. She scrambled to her feet, clattering down the steps to the bridge and running towards what she was sure would be the remains of the skull.

It sat there, intact, on the floor underneath the unbroken window.

"What the hell?" Kurtis was behind her, mystified.

"Don't…question it." Lara said quietly, stooping to pick it up. "Just don't."


	9. Front

_Front (I Try - Palo Alto)_

Lara scraped her knee as she pulled herself out of the tunnel, back onto the overgrown ornate stone floor, cold, dark jungle quiet and almost comforting as it closed in around her. Still crouched, she turned back to the hole and was just about to reach in to offer her assistance to Kurtis when, with a grunt, he shot up out of the pitch black opening, startling her and making her fall backwards as she jerked out of his way. He rose into the air, his feet clearing the ground easily, and landed just at the side of the trapdoor with a thud.

Eyes wide, Lara stared at him.

"Just checking that whatever was blocking my powers in there, isn't working out here." He pulled the hair from his eyes and, seeing her fallen onto her rump, gave a slightly embarrassed smile. "Sorry."

"Not a problem," Lara replied, her voice and facial expression clearly tacking on a silent addition of, 'idiot'. She got to her feet, brushing the dirt and grit from her hands and body.

Looking back towards the expanse of grass between the temples, she began to creep forwards through the thick greenery, taking care not to make more noise than might be thought normal for the jungle, her gaze ever fixed in the distance. As they approached the edge of the clearing just a short distance from the trapdoor, bright light began to filter in through the foliage. It pooled in distorted spots on the thick waxy leaves of the plants and illuminated whole patches of the barer floor. Parting some sort of fern, they looked out from their dark cover.

Powerful floodlights lit each ruin and spread out to cover a good area of the vast site, leaving only a few pale shadows around the edge and in the centre. Security guards ambled on patrol in pairs or trios, with the exception of one loner who walked contemplatively along the perimeter, staring up at the clear moon. It felt safe in the midnight blue hues of their little outreach of jungle, where they would never be noticed if they were quiet, and neither of them wanted to leave it for what would likely turn into a fight should they try to cross the complex.

"We can get back to the road further down if we go through the jungle," Kurtis whispered.

Lara didn't answer at first. It hadn't escaped her attention that it was a thick, dark jungle just like this one in which her vision had shown her being assaulted by a conniving Kurtis. "The jungle's a dangerous place," she said, not turning to look at him.

"It'll take us maybe twenty minutes to get far enough down the road to be safe," Kurtis said, "and if we stay close to the edge, keep our wits about us…we'll be fine. I imagine most of the creepy-crawlies will be sleeping; they're the worst."

"We should see if there's a site here for reading the next stage of the map," Lara said thoughtfully, completely ignoring the previous topic of conversation.

Kurtis noticed this, but put it down to nothing more than yet more posturing that saw Lara constantly enforcing her position as leader of the expedition. Still, she was right. It was a theory he himself had surmised, and if there were some sort of slot for correctly positioning the idol and skulls to gain the next vision, it would be stupid not to use it.

He began to back up, holding back a branch for Lara to turn around without it hitting her, and she muttered her thanks as she took it from him, letting him lead the way as they retraced their steps.

Watching his back as they walked, Lara's eyes narrowed. The vision of him knocking her out replayed in her head, over and over again, and each time it looped she felt the anger inside of her bubble up just a little more. Thinking, calculating, predicting moves and outcomes, and being more than a little influenced by personal feelings, she made a decision.

"Forget it," she said shortly, making a sharp turn away from the temple and into the deeper jungle, "it's too risky to be climbing around the temple whilst Security are watching, and there's no point searching for something that uses sun if it's the moon that's in the sky."

Spinning around, Kurtis watched her for a moment as she continued to walk and slung her bag off her shoulders, pulling out and flicking on a torch, obviously not going to wait for him. Just what kind of mind games was she playing?

"Lara," he warned, chasing after her, "Lara, you'd better quit these stupid games of yours, I'm not one of your servants for you to boss around in your big mansion."

"I don't have servants," she said tartly.

"Yeah, well, whatever," was Kurtis' uninterested reply. "Fact is, I am sick of you treating people like this."

"Like what?" Contrary.

"I try to give you some slack, try to understand that you're dealing with whatever it is you're dealing with, but you just don't wanna give anything back. You think you're the only one with problems?"

Lara shot him a quick, harsh glare over her shoulder, not halting as she marched forwards into the dark growth, heedless of animals or insects and swinging her light haphazardly across the path. "Not many people have problems like mine," she shot back.

"Oh," Kurtis replied in mock understanding, "I see. Well, I'm sorry."

"Don't get sarcastic with me," Lara snapped, spinning round to face him as she halted sharply, her face blazing with rage. The torch hung forgotten in her hand, its light bouncing off the leaf-covered ground and up lighting their faces in a faint orange, accentuating every shadow and giving each of them a haggard, inhuman look.

Kurtis took a step closer, trying to intimidate her with his slightly superior height. His face had just the hint of a sneer, and his voice was cold. "Martyred hero."

"I'm warning you." Lara's voice was low, her chest heaving in barely controlled anger.

"I don't know what happened to lead to that accident in Egypt that hit the news, but I'm guessing it was something big and ever since then you've had some superiority complex. You weren't exactly polite in Paris, were you? And let's not forget that you were so concerned with what _you_ wanted, you never even thought to try and let me know that Eckhardt was dead."

"We've been through this," Lara complained, folding her arms and averting her eyes.

"No we haven't," Kurtis argued shortly, continuing. "Eckhardt murdered my father."

"He killed my friend," Lara matched, her gaze back on his.

"You denied me closure," Trent accused, his eyes taking on a hint of pain, his body moving even closer.

"Hardly my fault you were too scared to go and get it." Lara moved in herself, her ire becoming more apparent as her words sought to hit a weak spot.

"That's harsh, Croft."

"Would you expect anything less?"

He stared at her for a second, lips thin and jaw trembling, _something_ threatening to break at any moment. Lara returned the gaze, eyes narrowed.

With the slightest forward movement of his body, Lara threw the torch aside and attacked. Her arms unfolded, hands taking hold of his shoulders in a split second and her knee being thrust into his stomach, drawing a short, loud cry. She shoved him, their bodies almost black silhouettes in the beam of the fallen light, sending him stumbling backwards, and she marched forwards and landed a sharp punch to his cheek. His foot caught a tree root as he staggered and he fell into the trunk, eyes screwing shut in pain as his head hit.

Not waiting for a return attack, Lara spun, snatched up the fallen torch and ran, hurtling through the maze of trees, twigs and leaves catching at her arms as she tore back towards the jeep.

Grunting as Kurtis moved his jarred shoulder to settle back against the tree, he watched the rapidly distancing light go bouncing erratically through the jungle as she retreated. He couldn't be bothered to fight anymore – let her go, it just wasn't worth it. Sighing, he closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the bark. A sudden fine rain took up, breaking through the canopy overhead and landing on his face, the hiss of millions of drops hitting leaves filling the air all around him. With no shelter, he brought his knees to his chest and buried his head in them, wrapping his arms around himself and feeling the wet cold seep into his shirt.

Back on the road, Lara fought to put the top back up on the jeep whose floor was already under water, her soaked skin covered in rivulets and her curses lost in the sound of the downpour.


	10. SelfFulfilled

**Oh my. I got my muse back _and_ found time to write. Is it an apocolypse or something?**

**To everyone who has reviewed in the months since this was last updated and who didn't get replies from me - thank you so much for reading, enjoying, and taking the time to let me know.**

Soundtrack: Beyond The Invisible by Enigma - New Age

_Self-Fulfilled_

Sending a wave of spray up into the air as it shot through a puddle, a taxi turned into the hotel's driveway and headed for the front entrance. Jose hesitated. As doorman, it was his job to open car doors and greet visitors, but it was still raining heavily. He didn't relish the idea of leaving his shelter underneath the porch and getting drenched, only to have to spend the remaining three hours of his shift in a waterlogged uniform, chilled and dripping. Curse the uniform – all appearance and no practicality, with its water-retaining material and sweat-inducing warmth when dry. Still, he had a job to do.

He began to move forwards as the car came to a halt, but before he was out in the rain the passenger had opened the door themselves and was making a dash for reception. Quickly, Jose jumped back and yanked the hotel door open, the tall, muscled man from the taxi rushing through and barrelling over to the reception desk. Unsure whether there was luggage to unload or not, Jose looked back out to the splashing puddles and decided to wait where he was until instructed otherwise.

Not two minutes later he was opening the door again as the man ran back to the waiting taxi, cash in hand, and paid the driver. Pulling dripping hair from out of his eyes, he gave a short wave as the cab pulled away, and then hurried back towards the hotel, slowing as he reached the shelter of the covered entrance.

"Nice weather for working outdoors, huh?" he smiled to Jose as the doorman leant forwards to open the door once more.

"I try to think of it as being refreshing," Jose returned, easily giving his reply in the American's own language.

"That's the spirit – stay positive." Kurtis smiled his thanks to Jose and disappeared back into the lobby.

'Thank god for receptionists and cell phones', Kurtis thought to himself as he crossed to the lift and pulled the aforementioned and slightly damp gadget out of his pocket, drying it on a patch of dry sleeve that had managed to stay protected under his jacket throughout the downpour. He'd called for a taxi to rescue him after Lara had abandoned him in the jungle, and reception had paid the bill whilst adding it onto his own charges to be paid at the end of his stay. Next time, he'd make sure he wasn't relying on her for anything.

The lift chimed, the doors opened, and he stepped out onto his floor. Faint laughter and the sound of arcade machines filtered through from the badly fitting doors of the floor's lounge. Not having worn a watch in years, he checked the clock on his phone. It was almost half past eleven. Whilst most holidaymakers were staying up late, Lara had probably gone to bed ready for an early start back at the ruins. He stopped and listened at her door for a moment, but heard nothing, so returned to his own room, adjacent. Locking the door, Kurtis decided to just have a little check on the woman whose allegiances were always hovering just in the grey.

Readying himself near the dividing wall and forcing into farsee, he pushed himself through the plaster and brick, trying to ignore the unpleasant claustrophobic feeling that always came with moving through solid objects, fleeting though the experience was. The world blurred around him, details hidden behind a hazy orange film, impenetrable and constantly surrounding him. Silently, he swam forward through the non-existent viscosity that always hindered his path in this state, and hovered just over the end of the bed.

A slight rising and falling of the thin comforter signalled her breathing as she lay sleeping, a peaceful detachment emanating from her still features, her head sunk into the deep pillow and turned towards fingers that rested nearby, curled in relaxation.

For a moment, he found her attractive. Then he decided to feel something different.

'How do you sleep?' Kurtis asked himself, assuring himself of his disgust.

The next morning, Kurtis scanned the sparse groups of sightseers for his wayward partner as he walked quickly across the yellowing grass of the Great Plaza at the temple complex. Unless she'd sneaked in the same way she'd got out the night before, she couldn't have been more than two minutes ahead of him – the site had only just opened for the day and the tourist bus he'd come in on had been the second to arrive.

He couldn't see her, but there were plenty of places she could have been out of sight, and in truth, she could have already been and gone.

His best bet was the Temple Of The Warriors at the far end, where the skull had been found and where Lara apparently believed the next destination would be revealed. It was almost deserted as he emerged from the column-filled rectangle at its front, most of the tourists having started on the ruins closer to the buses. He exchanged polite smiles with a guide who was on watch and hurried past them, starting up the steep steps.

There was no-one at the top, apparently, and he slowed, looking around for some sort of clue as to what should be done with the crystal skull found some distance beneath his feet. That clue would, hopefully, lead him to Lara. Nothing jumped out at him, though, and he was painfully aware that he didn't really know what he was looking for.

"Ah, you're here. Good."

He whirled at the sound, finding her standing, atop one of the columns that once supported a roof, with that belligerent, superior air she'd been adopting at least since San Francisco. She must have been crouched before, that and the elevation hiding her from sight.

"Oh, so you want me here now?"

"Now I have a use for you, yes." Without warning, she tossed the pink skull, which she'd been hefting in her right hand up until now, through the air towards him. He caught it easily but that wasn't the point. She was being careless.

"I went back to the tunnel entrance and took a closer look at the carvings in the area. When this thing had a roof on, there would have been an opening on the tops of these two corner columns." She gestured to the one she was stood on, and the one opposite. "The two skulls sat in the windows and directed the sunlight across to the idol, in the centre of the floor."

"And my role?"

"Well, there are people coming." Lara tipped her head towards the plaza, a few meandering souls heading slowly towards them. "I'll be catatonic for a few moments whilst I have the vision, so you'll need to assure them that there's nothing wrong and keep an eye on the artefacts."

Kurtis sighed. "And why do I get the feeling that you won't let me in on the secret once you've seen it?"

"Of course I will!" Lara replied, almost sounding hurt. "You're too far into this to be able to back away now. Would it achieve anything other than extra trouble if I tried to keep you out of the loop?"

He surveyed her suspiciously, weighing up her true intentions. It was clear, though, that she was right about him being in too deep, even if her assessment of his reasons was probably wrong. He sighed in resignation and, checking that they had no company yet, quickly pulled himself up onto the other corner support.

Looking over to see how Lara had placed hers, he positioned the crystal skull and hopped back down. His errant partner was already on the floor and carefully lining up the idol with engraved camouflaged markers that only she could see.

The intricate inner structure of the skulls was already channelling the sun's rays, although by what magic those structures had been created, Kurtis had no idea. He watched dust motes and altered colours grow steadily more prominent through the slowly strengthening beams.

Breaking his concentration, Lara stood, staring down at the idol and then taking a quick glance to the approaching tourists. She seemed agitated, clearly wishing that the sun would hurry so that she could perform the task without company.

They waited in silence, watching the steadily altering shadow of the idol grow ever closer to clarity.

After a painfully impatient wait, the shadow became clear; the outline was sharp, the shadow dark, and the lines of the generic stepped pyramid it drew straight and perpendicular. Kurtis was once again stunned by how much the skulls could magnify and focus the sun.

The sound of footsteps scuffing on stone took up not far away and Lara looked sharply towards it, her face angered. Resolutely, she knelt and reached out to the idol.

Just as she expected, just as had happened before, she gasped as her lungs almost froze, and her body became stiff and taut as if deeply shocked.

She was hovering in the centre of another temple complex, the view before her parched and yellowed around the eroded ruins, but it was only for a second and then she was moving backwards for a short distance before swinging around to face the opposite direction and speeding, speeding away, out of the complex, down the trail, along tracks, pushing through foliage that she never touched, coming upon a fast-flowing river and continuing on without pause or respite, rushing over the water as if she was flying, and continuing on through thick jungle regardless of trails or paths, but then she was on a main road and following that before being lurched dizzyingly and yet smoothly to the side onto a foot trail and only then moving to face her new direction, her forced journey continuing up the steep and difficult trail before eventually, after miles or yards, it was so hard to tell, the ground levelled out and she came to an abrupt halt right in front of a small, gated entrance and –

And then it was dark, so dark, but there were small shafts of illumination from torches, two of them held by her and Kurtis, and they were staring around at the walls of a cave with a third man, a South American, and then she was watching herself squeezing out from a tiny, tiny hole in the wall and looking up to find a gun pointed at her head, and then she took control, moved the vision to find Kurtis, and he was unconscious not too far away, his body slumped to the ground, and then --

Then there was shouting and crashing waves and screaming for help and then time abruptly, jarringly, slowed down to a more realistic progression, and she was back in herself and hanging on for dear life whilst she was crying out for Kurtis to help her before she was swept away, but his eyes were hard and he didn't reach out for her, simply scrambled away on his ledge and left her to die, and then when time had rewound a few seconds she could see that she was there because he'd pushed her, pushed her into the current purposefully and --

"That's nice, Lara, real good. Now let's just have a big smile, something a little more fun and relaxed."

Freed of the vision, Lara pulled herself together quickly, taking in the interested glances she was getting from the three tourists that had joined them on the ruins, and Kurtis crouching before her with a camera. He'd been pretending she'd been posing for photos? She grudgingly admitted to herself that it was actually a quite clever ruse, especially thought of so quickly.

She lounged by the idol, swept her fringe out of her eyes and smiled wide. Kurtis snapped off a picture.

"Fantastic. I think that's a wrap."

"That's film, not photos," Lara hissed scathingly as she stuffed the idol in her bag.

"Whatever," Kurtis shrugged, effectively ignoring her. He smiled at the middle aged woman who moved politely to the side to let him retrieve one of the crystal skulls.

Lara got the other and together they hurried off down the steps.

"Where to?" Kurtis asked, putting on his sunglasses and running his fingers through his hair to tame it.

"Belize. Checham Ha caves." Lara was already waiting for the airport to pick up the phone, her own handset pressed to her ear.

"Been there before?"

"No, I've seen it on a television documentary. It's tourist friendly."

"Cool. I'll take my Amex."


	11. Misguided Rejections

**Hey, there! This one's for Jordy.**

Soundtrack: ORT by Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill Origins opening theme)

_Misguided Rejections_

Kurtis automatically scanned the bar as he entered and his eyes fell upon Lara, already there and nursing a glass of what looked like whisky. He hesitated. His first instinct, her being an acquaintance, was to go and join her, but he wasn't sure he really wanted to and he certainly wasn't sure whether or not he'd be welcome. On the other hand, he was still harbouring some strange belief that if he kept trying then she'd come round and they'd get on like a house on fire, both in bed and out of it. He wasn't sure but he thought he hated her and probably wanted her dead. Inwardly, he cursed her.

They'd said little to each other since receiving the next location in the treasure hunt. The airport had found a flight to Belize for them quickly so Lara's excuse for anti social behaviour had been packing, finding a hotel for their new location and wrapping up the car rental. She had shortly refused his offer of help, so he'd just gathered his stuff and then watched TV until it had been time to go. That lonesome time wasting had left him feeling in need of a livelier atmosphere, so, safely ensconced in his latest hotel room, he'd sought out the bar. What Lara's excuse for being there was, he didn't know.

Feeling generous - or, more likely, suicidal - he made his way over to her and sat, leaving one empty seat between them.

Lara's gaze flickered to him and then returned to her drink.

The barman approached. Kurtis ordered a Scotch.

"Hi. What are you drinking?"

"Whisky," Lara replied, still staring at the bar as she ran her finger around the rim of the glass.

"Looks like you're almost done there. Can I get you another?"

"I'm fine, thank you."

"Waiting for your husband?"

Lara, realising that he was trying to make the other guests think he was picking her up, looked up at last with nothing short of irate astonishment.

"Is this your idea of a joke? You're absurd."

It was his idea of a joke, actually. He knew she'd hate it. He grinned lopsidedly to himself as he swirled his drink in his glass. "No one says 'absurd', Lara."

"I do."

"Maybe if you're trying to set yourself apart, you do."

"Fuck off, Kurtis," she muttered into her glass.

"I don't believe you say that, either."

"Don't you have a past to try and escape or something?" Lara snapped.

Kurtis laughed. "Usually, you can cut me right to the bone but that - that didn't work. You're trying too hard."

"Oh, fine," she growled, tipping her head back and downing the last of her alcohol before standing swiftly, "have the bar, see if I care. I'll see you in the lobby tomorrow morning at eight. Do _not_ keep me waiting."

She stormed out and Kurtis laughed hollowly, faking victory. The barman, bemused, looked from her quickly retreating figure to Kurtis, who suddenly wasn't looking so happy anymore.

"Lara," he called with regret in his voice, reaching back to drop his drink back onto the bar as he lunged forward to take chase. He missed, the glass falling to his vacated stool and then bouncing to the carpeted floor. The contents splashed out as it tumbled, leaving their marks on the furnishings as they quietly, aggressively, soaked in.

In the lobby, the doors to the only lift were just closing, cutting her off from view. He dashed for the call button, but the car had already started up and wouldn't be recalled. Snarling in frustration, he fell back a couple of steps, hands in his hair, and then barrelled through the wooden double doors to the stair well and began racing up the three flights to their floor.

She beat him there, of course, and by the time he got out into the hall, the place was silent and empty, all the doors to the rooms tightly closed.

He jogged the distance to her room and raised his hand to knock, suddenly desperate to level with her, but the memory of the vision stopped him. _That_ vision, shown by the idol. The one where he'd been staring out of a window – to a view he now recognised as the pool and gardens of that very hotel – and she'd met his declaration with a bullet.

He backed away, hand still raised to knock, and then shoved open the door to his own room and slammed it behind him with so much force that he nearly broke the lock.

He didn't keep her waiting the next morning, wanting to keep himself as blame-free as possible, leave it all on her. In fact, he was there before she was, and as she descended the last few steps of the staircase, he stood from the sofa where he'd been for the last ten minutes and readied himself to fall into step next to her.

"How are we getting there?" he asked.

"We're booked onto a tour of the caves with the local family who look after them. One of them will be our guide. Someone from the hotel will take us to our meeting point and pick us up again later." With that explanation, she continued past the main doors leading outside and headed instead for the reception desk.

"We're expecting a lift to Chechem Ha," she told the smiling receptionist, not bothering with niceties.

The young woman responded in kind, not answering and instead just turning and shouting over her shoulder to somebody in the back room. "Luis, your tourists are here." The receptionist immediately busied herself on the computer.

After some hearty goodbyes that emanated from the back room with some volume, Luis appeared with a back pack slung over his shoulder, a pair of sunglasses in his hand, and a wide smile on his face.

"Hello," he almost shouted.

Kurtis cringed slightly. The man's cheeriness was not going to mesh too well with Lara's surliness, that he could tell. He looked over to her. She was trying to hide a scowl.

Luis' teeth were brilliantly white against his dark skin as he grinned, his expression slightly unnerving due to his eyes now being hidden behind his sunglasses. He might have been faking the enthusiasm, he might not have.

"Are you ready for your cave tour?" he asked.

Lara nodded. "Yes, thank you."

"It's a very physical day, I hope you have your walking boots on."

"We're ready," Lara assured him, she and Kurtis following as Luis strode for the doors.

"It's very bright today," he remarked as he unlocked and got into their vehicle, a battered and mud splattered Land Rover. Lara ignored him whilst Kurtis agreed.

Their journey passed in silence to begin with, their driver speeding them through the town streets on smooth roads filled with traffic, but as they left the city limits and passed onto rougher terrain, he began to chat to them, despite Lara's obvious disinterest in the conversation.

His comments were light and throwaway at first, just small talk, but then Kurtis decided to take things in a different direction. Throwing a glance at Lara who was alone in the back seat, he asked, "Luis, are there any crystal skulls in the caves?"

Luis smiled to himself and Kurtis supposed that he was thinking to himself, though in good nature, that they were typical tourists. Typical tourists who'd had a personal argument, perhaps. That would explain Lara.

"No, there are no crystal skulls. There are actually very few of the larger ones, and they are all in museums. You've made an unnecessary journey if that's what you want to see; there's one in America and one in Britain. Most people say they're 19th century fakes, you know."

Kurtis looked to Lara; she gave a small nod of confirmation. So the guy was knowledgeable and honest – that was good.

"Have you heard of any skulls in this area? Ever?"

Turning onto a smaller and yet bumpier track, Luis shook his head. "No, but if you really want one, there are plenty of souvenir shops that will sell them." He grinned and Kurtis joined him, shaking his head.

"I'm on the look out for the real deal."

"Then you're on the wrong tour, my friend, there's just broken pottery and bones in Chechem Ha." He paused and then continued conversationally. "There is a local legend of a skull, but if it ever existed, it was looted long ago."

Lara's face registered a flicker of interest. Clearly, this was something she hadn't been aware of.

"Go on," Kurtis prompted.

Their driver smiled, obviously amused by the interest. "Some of the locals are descendents of the Maya. They have a story that there is a crystal skull kept in this area that is one of three. When you put them together they will lead you to the location of a magical dagger." Lara leaned forward, listening intently now. Kurtis exchanged a conspiratorial glance with her but Luis, eyes on the road, didn't notice. He continued.

"The dagger lets you call up one of the Mayan gods. He is called Buluc Chabtan. He's a nasty one, one you don't want to meet. The Mayans had a lot of violence in their religion."

He seemed about to launch into a lecture about their culture and creeds but Lara stopped him, speaking for the first time. "Do you know anything more about the skull?"

Luis regarded her in the rear view mirror for a moment and then ignored her question. "I don't think you'll have a problem with the hike and the caving today – you both look very fit. Do you hike often?"

"I enjoy physical activities," Lara answered lightly. "Rock climbing, mostly."

Without warning, Luis jumped back to the previous topic of conversation. "It is guarded – all of them are."

"The skull? Guarded by what?" Lara asked warily, suspiciously.

"By spirits bound to protect the skulls and the dagger. So they say. It's more likely that it's just modern Mayans carrying on a duty, but that would scare me more than spirits – people can carry guns, after all." He was speaking loudly and clearly over the din of the off-road travel, lending seriousness to his voice.

"_If_ you managed to get one of the skulls, it would show you where to look for the next, and then when you had all three, they would show you where the dagger was, but getting it still wouldn't be easy."

"Guarded, too?" Kurtis asked, turned to Luis with his hand braced against the dashboard to steady himself along the bumpy journey.

"Oh, yes. The Mayans knew that times changed; they weren't careless. Assuming you managed it all, you'd still be on dangerous ground. _I_ certainly wouldn't play cards with the devil."

Kurtis frowned. "What?"

"I mean," Luis smiled, "that a god like Buluc Chabtan wouldn't play fair."

In the back, Lara rolled her eyes and settled back into her seat, a mocking smile on her face. Clearly, she had rather more confidence in her god-handling abilities than Luis thought anyone should have.

The car slowed on a slight incline and then stopped; there were small, round, thatched huts nearby and a woman appeared from one and approached. Luis touched his baseball cap in a modern, casual take on doffing a hat. He was smiling at her.

"Ana! Is Antonio around? He owes me money!"

Ana, tall and lean from a lifestyle of hard work and walking, returned the greeting and strolled towards them, her Western clothes surprisingly clean for someone who seemed to live in the humid forest. "He's stacking the grain out back."

Luis got out from behind the steering wheel and disappeared between the huts, leaving Lara and Kurtis to make their own introductions. They got out, dropping their bags onto the muddy ground, and looked to their host.

"I'm Ana," she said, shaking their hands. "My husband, Antonio, will be taking you to the caves. I'm sure you're anxious to get started but please, come inside first. I'm sure you're thirsty, and we need to go over a few things before you leave."

Lara flashed a quick, unenthusiastic smile as she shook the woman's hand, leaving Kurtis to pick up the slack and stop the poor woman from feeling uncomfortable and under appreciated. He greeted Ana heartily and then, after she had turned to lead them into one of the huts, shot Lara a fierce glare that would have terrified most people.

"Quit showing yourself up," he whispered harshly.

Lara didn't react, just meeting his gaze levelly and without expression. When he marched on ahead, though, she blinked rapidly and tried to smother a shuddering sigh.


	12. Redux

**The last chapter has just undergone a minor, minor edit. Nothing worth re-reading for, though. I'm not even sure why I'm mentioning it.**

**Again, thank you so much for all the reviews I've been getting. I'm trying to keep the updates rolling, I really am. This chapter is for Amy, even though I think she's got far too much going on to be able to read this. XD**

Sountrack: Loaded Gun by Hednoize

_Redux  
_

The light coming in through the low cave entrance was quickly swallowed as it encroached upon the darkness' domain, an unwelcome visitor quickly disposed of. Lara dipped her light and held a hand in front of her face, quirking a smile as she found she could barely see it.

Beside her, Kurtis made a noise of disgust. He was staring at a cave spider illuminated in the light of his torch, sitting stoically on the wall nearby.

"Come on." Antonio, their guide, beckoned them forwards. "We'll start just through here."

They followed, moving through a short tunnel into a second, larger chamber. From the placement of the pottery, the positioning of the walls and the rocks against which Kurtis had been slumped, Lara recognised it immediately as the area from her vision. Sure enough, the tiny hole from which she'd seen herself emerging was over towards the back of the cave.

She purposefully strode in the opposite direction, silently asking for permission to scale a small rope ladder to see into a raised alcove where the top of a large pottery jar placed within was just visible from the ground. Antonio nodded his ascent and reached out to steady the ropes as Lara began to climb the wobbly planks.

"What do you see up there, Lara?" Kurtis asked, coming to stand at the bottom.

"Lovely," was all she said. "These jars are beautifully preserved – the colours are so bright. How old are all these?"

Kurtis was excessively stung by her effective ignorance of him. It may have been that sting colouring his view of her, but he got the feeling that her enthusiasm was entirely put on. Almost petulantly, he braced his foot on the bottom rung of the ladder and hauled himself up behind her, coming to rest just two steps below her and steadying himself with a hand on the rock face either side of her, his face hovering close to hers over her shoulder. His breath stirred her fringe and his body rested lightly against hers.

Resolutely, Lara ignored him, her expression becoming hard and her concentration focusing pointedly on the bright blue jar that sat at the front of the group.

"Quite the collection you've got here, Antonio," Kurtis said.

"There is much, much more to see," Antonio replied proudly.

Lara turned her head slightly, directing herself towards Kurtis though keeping her eyes cast firmly downwards. She wasn't nervous or intimidated, she was very subtly warning him. "We'd better get on then, hadn't we?" Her smile was venomous.

Kurtis smiled bitterly to himself and hopped straight down, landing with a thud and disturbing a small cloud of dust. Lara descended rather more delicately.

"What's that?" she asked lightly, then, turning her attention to the small tunnel she had come for.

"We don't go down there," the guide answered. "It leads to a very small, empty cave. There are a lot of…what do you call them… nooks and crannies in these caves and most of them just aren't fit for people."

"But the Mayans used them, didn't they? I've seen on television that they often used areas that were difficult to get to, with tiny entrances and things."

Antonio, giving a smile, shrugged.

"Could I please take a look?" Lara pushed, playing innocent and harmless. "I do a lot of caving back home so I know my limits and how to get out of a tight spot. If I can't get through I'll just back out, I won't get stuck."

"No, I can't let you," Antonio maintained. "We have to have insurance to bring tourists here and I can't let you go somewhere that isn't safe," he was saying, but Lara was already backing away towards the cramped entrance with an apologetic smile on her face.

"Oh, I'll be fine, really. I know when to give up before I can't get out. I really, really want to see in there."

She imagined, from her vision and the lack of information it had given, that the skull was a short distance away and unguarded except for by the difficult journey required to get to it and the duties of their guide who was apparently a guardian descendent. So, she'd been intending to make out that she was unaware of just how adamant he was that she shouldn't enter, get the skull, and then claim that she'd either seen nothing in there, or hadn't managed to make it the full way down the hole.

Now, though, actually experiencing the situation, she wasn't so sure. If he was going to overpower Kurtis and have a gun ready and waiting for her by the time she squeezed back out, he was taking his duties far more seriously than to flippantly hope that she'd been telling the truth when she claimed that the trip had been uneventful.

With one more step backwards, she provoked him.

"Miss, I really can't let you," he insisted forcefully, grabbing for her arm.

Lara hopped back and drew her concealed weapon in one fluid motion, Kurtis mirroring the action in the same moment. Safeties clicked off, feet scuffled, torches and guns were aimed steadily. Silence.

Kurtis' gaze flickered between the guide and Lara, covering both of them.

Antonio stood stock still in the focus of a crossfire.

"Gun on _him_, Kurtis," Lara snapped.

"You're both a threat as far as I'm concerned."

Antonio, eyes carefully looking back and forth between his assailants, grimaced. "_Buluc-Chabtan_ is the threat."

"I can handle it." Lara began slowly to back towards the opening, she too dividing her attention between the other two parties, gun wavering slightly as she covered them both. "Watch him, Kurtis. I saw you unconscious."

"Nice of you to tell me earlier."

"Do not go in there." Antonio's voice was quietly threatening, his body tensed. "I can kill you."

"You can try." Lara got to her knees, keeping her weapon aimed, and then, leaving Kurtis to hold the standoff, quickly ducked into the tunnel and scurried out of sight.

There was room enough at first, but it quickly narrowed and the ceiling lowered even as the floor raised, and after just a few feet Lara was inching her way along with her fingers and toes, grunting with the exertion. The light of her torch, grasped tightly in a fist ahead of her, sliced sharply across the rough walls as she dragged her way forwards, and her knuckles grazed with each movement.

The exit lay about two or three feet above the floor of the dark space it opened into, shrouded in darkness, its size and contents invisible and at least, she reached it. She hung out of it, free from the waist downwards and unable to properly hold on anywhere to steady herself. With one last push that cut her knee and hurt her ankle, she squeezed her way out and dropped to her hands on the cold floor, her legs still held in the tunnel behind her. She hand-walked her way forwards until she could pull one leg out and set it on the ground.

Standing at last, she took stock of her surroundings. Small and a dead-end, it was filled with pottery shards, the remains of inanimate offerings to the gods. They were scattered across the floor in groups, most of them large enough to still be recognisable as pots. Lara knelt and picked one up, disturbing another cave spider that skittered away at alarming speed. She smiled to herself, examining the paintwork.

That wasn't the reason she'd come, though, so she quickly replaced it and turned to the artefact sitting in the centre of the space.

A soft blue, the crystal skull stared back at her with a garish expression.

"The last one," Lara said to herself, picking it up and turning it around in her hands as she examined it. Just like the others, there was an internal structure visible in the finely crafted crystalline material.

The skull was quickly stuffed into her bag, barely fitting, and she realised that she'd have to push it ahead of herself along with her torch in order to fit back through the tunnel and minimise the risk of damage to the treasure.

Back at the far end of the tunnel, where there was room to move, she pulled herself into a crouch and prepared for the fight that she knew was coming. Her bag was returned to her back, her gun was readied, and, though keeping back in the shadows, she peeked out into the cavern.

Despite her warning, Kurtis had still been overpowered. He lay slumped against some rocks, breathing but unconscious.

"Drop the weapon," she called out sharply from the blackness, aiming her own.

Her answer was a gunshot, the bullet slamming into the wall at the back of the tunnel entrance just inches from where she sat. She jumped and fell back, not expecting such rash reaction.

She composed herself and made her next move. "You're risking damaging the skull."

"Better damaged or destroyed than in the wrong hands."

"It's sacred to you." She gambled, fishing the skull out of her bag and holding it in front of her as she carefully, warily, emerged. It paid off – the gun was still trained on her but Antonio wasn't risking firing.

She came to stand in front of him, skull in one hand and gun in the other. He faced her, his expression determined.

Slowly, Lara began to side-step over towards Kurtis, wanting to check on him or find some way to rouse him whilst still holding off Antonio. Losing her concentration for a fraction of second, she gave her unconscious partner in crime the most vague of glances.

Antonio attacked.

Sweeping his free hand forwards before shoving it in Lara's direction, he unleashed a twinkling stream of blue light that shot towards her at bullet speed, deadly but beautiful. Before she could even think about it, Lara found herself throwing herself backwards out of its way, leaving it slamming into the wall behind where she had just stood. So that was how he'd overcome a Lux Veritatis. Thank god she was fast.

She began to fire, keeping moving and doing her best to keep the smooth, cumbersome skull tucked under her arm, but the bullets never even reached their target. Met with more of the supernatural light, they just seemed to be rendered useless, vanished or disintegrated, she didn't know. Her onslaught was keeping him busy, though, and his own shots were infrequent and poorly aimed as he fought to keep his balance under the constantly shifting threat that saw him flailing his arms desperately.

To one side, Kurtis' eyelids flickered.

"We'll hunt you to the ends of the earth!" Antonio's screamed threat was almost inaudible over the deafening echo of the gunshots in the rocky cavern.

"I can run," Lara returned, her voice rough.

She ceased firing, stood and waited, kept her pistol held high. Antonio, freed of the attack, stumbled. He righted himself quickly and for a moment, all that passed between them was a hard, tenacious glare.

His arm drew back once more and Lara fired.

His cry filled the cave as the bullet hit home in his chest, blood immediately seeping out onto his beige T-shirt.

"Lara," Kurtis croaked, struggling to sit and reaching towards her, but she hadn't noticed his return to consciousness and she left him, turning and sprinting back out through to the tunnel to the entrance cave and then out into the open and the pouring rain.

Bawling in pain and fury, Antonio stumbled after her, clutching at his wound. He fell some feet from the exit, too pained and exhausted to continue, roaring at his defeat.

Behind him, Kurtis was on his knees, his eyes wide, his body slumped, his breath coming in heavy pants from the shock, hurt and anger. "Lara," he gasped, and then he too roared.

"Lara!"


	13. Renounce

**Well, I'm still managing to keep these updates coming. Certainly, the lovely reviews help. ;-) Thank you to everyone who's reading, especially those who stuck with this throughout my temporary abandonments of it. I promise I'm going to keep this going until it's done, now. Things are about to get a little darker...**

Soundtrack: Haunting Me by Stabbing Westward

_Renounce_

"Lara!" Kurtis screamed, his voice filled with rage. He stumbled as he pulled himself too quickly through the low cave entrance and slipped on the muddy slope, the heavy rain immediately soaking him through.

The storm hissed fiercely on the greenery around and above him, masking any sounds of escape she may have been making, and fuelling his anger. He had already lost her, she probably fleeing into the jungle rather than stick to the track.

"You fucking bitch!"

He was shaking with anger, filled with a tumultuous fury shot through with anguish, unable to control himself. His hands were clawed, his body tensed, his telekinesis boiling dangerously within him, about to burst. With a fierce snarl he let loose on a small, nearby tree, the invisible force slamming into it so hard that, creaking and groaning, the trunk snapped and the tree fell, crushing plants and leaves beneath it as it swept through the foliage.

The click of a gun's safety release sounded behind him.

"Hands above your head."

Ignoring the warning, still breathing heavily in ire, Kurtis slowly turned around. Standing firmly but comfortably not too far away, their hotel guide, Luis, had a weapon trained steadily on him. "I said, 'hands above your head'."

"I don't have the skull and your buddy is dying in there."

"Hands above your head," Luis repeated slowly, enunciating each word threateningly.

Sighing and shifting his weight, Kurtis did as he was told.

"She shot Antonio at almost point blank range and ran off with your skull, you're threatening the wrong guy."

Antonio chose that moment to drag himself, groaning, into the cave entrance. The blood wasn't visible but it was obvious he was seriously hurt. Luis tensed, unsure what to do.

"You need to get him to a hospital," Kurtis prompted.

"You know where to find her." Luis' words were assured, his tone indicated that he thought that Kurtis was trying to distract him.

"I'm sure she'll have stolen your car and fucked off out of the hotel before I even manage to walk back to the city limits." Kurtis' tone, in contrast, was almost amused, so incensed was he by her actions.

Luis grimaced. At last, he dropped his aim and dashed over to Antonio, turning the prone and coughing man over and quickly examining the wound. "My god," he breathed, shocked by the severity. Seeing Kurtis still standing there, he tore a phone from out of his pocket and threw it to him. "Call an ambulance! 911!"

Kurtis didn't, instead dropping to his knees at Antonio's side and tossing the phone back to Luis before launching straight into first aid. "I have field training, you can direct the ambulance better, you call 'em."

The surprise stopped Luis for only a moment, and then he too began to act.

As it turned out Lara hadn't stolen the car, or left the hotel by the time Kurtis and Luis pulled up there some time later. The paramedics had praised Kurtis for his quick and calm actions, stabilised Antonio in the ambulance, and taken him quickly away to the hospital, his worried wife with them. Luis had just started the car and waited silently for Kurtis to realise that there was an offer of a lift. He'd checked out immediately upon returning, leaving the bill to her should she ever return, and taken the first flight back to France.

"Bye!" Kurtis waved from the restaurant doorway three days later. "Enjoy the parade!"

The little girl smiled and waved back before running to catch up with her waiting parents just a few feet away. They too said goodbye, and then disappeared into the crowds lining Main Street.

With a heavy sigh, Kurtis shut and locked the doors. "God," he said, falling back into French, "that was a tough evening." He rubbed the back of his neck tiredly.

Francine, polishing up the reception podium, smiled. "It's the Christmas holidays, Disneyland will be busy all week."

"Great. I come back to work after two weeks off and I'm in the thick of it."

The shift manager, Anton, appeared, scribbling on his copy of the duty rota. "Tomorrow morning for opening, Kurtis?"

Kurtis stared. "What? No! Come on, you can't make me work two shifts in less than twenty four hours."

"I can't _make_ you, no, but since the rest of the staff were regularly agreeing to do so to cover you, it would be nice of you to return the favour and give them a little time off."

"Who's on tomorrow if not me?"

"Marco."

"Fine, fine alright," Kurtis sighed. Marco was a good guy. "Let him off, I'll be here."

Anton smiled his thanks and disappeared back into the office to balance up the takings. Francine grinned at Kurtis and flicked a duster at him. He caught it and shoved it back into the cleaning tray she'd left on the windowsill behind him. "Anton," Kurtis called as Francine straightened the menus, "there's just the vacuuming left – can I do it tomorrow before we open?"

"Sure," came the muted reply as Kurtis was already shrugging into his winter jacket. "You can go. Katya is managing tomorrow morning, by the way."

"Ok." He tossed Francine her coat and unlocked the door, leaving his hand on the handle to open it as soon as she was ready. "Wanna hit up the arcade, Francine?"

"Mini bowling?" She grinned and went ahead of him through the open door.

"My treat."

The two shifts in twenty four hours, during one of Disneyland's busier periods, had left Kurtis tired and wishing for some time to himself, time to kick back, watch a movie and not have to rush to get some rest in before he had to be up for work again. Unfortunately he had yet another shift the next morning, still repaying his colleagues for all the cover they'd put in during his impromptu leave, and time to himself wasn't something he was likely to see much of for the next few days.

Walking down by the Seine that evening, smoking and soaking up the half hour of peace and quiet he'd managed to fit in, Kurtis' attention was caught by the start-up of a familiar song. Sung in a deep and low voice, at a slightly slower pace than it should have been and littered with absent-minded pauses, it was a song he knew by heart – the march of the French Foreign Legion.

He turned to the singer, leaning against the riverbank railings a little way ahead of him, wrapped up in a long woollen coat. It was too much of a coincidence that they'd start singing that song just as he approached. Kurtis peered at them a little more closely.

"Karl, you Limey bastard, what are you doing here?" The words, though harsh in themselves, were laced with the delight of seeing an old friend. The two men embraced quickly, slapping each other's backs and laughing joyously.

"Kurtis! You never told me you were back in France! I've had work for you!"

Kurtis backed off, looking a little uncomfortable. "Well, I'm not in the mercenary game anymore."

"No? Shame." Karl turned back to the river and drew out a cigarette from his pocket.

"How'd you find me?" Kurtis asked, offering a light.

"Banksy was here on a job not long ago. You walked into his sniper scope on Rue du Bac. Of course, he couldn't shout to you. 'Told me he'd seen you when we met up for beers. Sorry, mate, but curiosity led to me tracking you down."

"Banksy? Really? How is he?"

"In jail as of last week."

"Oh."

The conversation trailed off for a moment. Then, Karl turned to him and came straight out with his question.

"Have you just been working in South America?"

Kurtis blinked, not particularly surprised, but still rather unwilling to give a straight answer. "I've been out there, yeah."

"Stealing priceless relics with that Lara Croft? You got mixed up with her in that Monstrum business, didn't you?"

"It wasn't a job." Kurtis dipped his head, directing his gaze to the ground. "I'm done with it."

"A man in Atlanta is willing to pay a lot of money to get one of those skulls back, and I'm sure he'd pay even more if he could have the other one."

"Go for it," Kurtis offered, toeing the ground as he watched the choppy river, "She's got a third one, too."

Silence pervaded again, broken only by the quacking of a duck bobbing on the water. It paddled a little way, apparently unconcerned by the freezing temperature, and dove for food.

"So if it wasn't a job," Karl started, fingering his brow, lined with a few more years than Kurtis had, "what were you doing there?" He shot a knowing sideways glance.

"I guess I was chasing something."

Karl laughed. "Her arse, by any chance?"

"Jesus, Karl." Kurtis swatted at him.

"Seriously, though," Karl said. "What's going on with you? You made a right mess in Prague and now you're flitting around with some broad risking your neck nicking national relics and ducking out before the job's done?"

Kurtis pushed off the railings, impatiently rebuking his friend's words. "The Monstrum murdered my dad. That's why I 'made a mess' – I was out for revenge, I didn't much care about being careful. And as for Lara? I cut loose because I wanted to. Isn't that the mercenary way? Do what's best for you?"

"Ok, alright." Karl held up his hands in surrender. After a moment's hesitation, he continued. "I'm sorry about your dad, I didn't know."

Kurtis lightly kicked the railing and returned to watching the Seine. "It's ok."

"Look, if you don't know what this Lara's up to and you don't want the job, then I'm not going to bother. 'Too much trouble to find somebody else and get all the intel. I'll stick to managing things closer to home."

Kurtis nodded. "Sounds good. She's not so easy, anyhow." He backed up a couple of steps, shaking his head to himself. "Look, I gotta go. I got work tomorrow."

"Oh?" Karl said, shouting after him as Kurtis turned and hurried away. "What are you doing now?"

Trent turned, walking backwards as he replied. "I'm…in hospitality."

"Hospitality?" Karl frowned and then raised his eyebrows as he applied a meaning. "You're pimping now?" That was a little too small scale for Kurtis in his opinion, though, so he could only escalate the deduction. "You're sex trafficking? Fuck, that's cold. Good money though, right?"

"Bye, Karl," Kurtis said pointedly. "Let me know if you ever want to meet for beer." He turned and continued on, walking briskly back to his apartment.

Just twenty minutes later, Kurtis turned the heat up a few degrees as he stepped inside and then quickly hung up his jacket and made straight for the kitchen cupboards. He poured himself a shot of whisky and downed it in one, leaving the glass by the sink and flicking off the lights as he went straight through to the bathroom to ready himself for bed. The alcohol wasn't something that he needed, not at that point, anyway. He was just a regular drinker.

The sheets were cold as he slid in between them, shivering slightly. Damn the harsh winter; it would be icy and freezing when he headed out for work the next morning, and he wouldn't even be missing the rush-hour traffic. He really needed to move closer to the theme park, commuting was becoming a real drag.

He tossed and he turned, the bed not warming up, sleep not setting in, his nagging frustration not dying down. Lara was on his mind, as she had been almost constantly since she'd ditched him in Belize. He hated her. He hated her, and he wanted her, and he hated wanting her.

Growling, he punched the pillow and then reached for his phone, dialling and settling back as he waited for an answer.

"Cerise? It's cold and I can't sleep." Kurtis smirked as Cerise replied, and then pulled open the drawer of his bedside table and looked inside. "No," he said, pulling out the box of condoms, "I have some. Just get over here." She said something else and he grinned. "Can't wait," he said seductively, biting his lip.


	14. The Gift

**Thank you for the reviews everyone, as ever. They make my inbox happy. :-) I hope this chapter's ok. Oh, if my French is wrong then 'sorry' - it's been about ten years since I last studied that language. :-O I checked the grammar as best I could.  
**

Soundtrack: Midlife Crisis by Faith No More

_The Gift_

The last few days to Christmas passed quickly, the chaotic last-minute preparations that occupied most people passing Kurtis by almost completely. Instead, he worked, and worked without complaint on Christmas Day.

Waking up that morning, he sat up in the bed and yawned, dragging his hands down over his face and shaking his head vigorously in an attempt to wake himself up. He had a long day ahead of him.

A Christmas present from Francine was on his bedside table, waiting to be opened – she'd insisted he save it. He leaned over and retrieved it, tearing off the silver paper with a smile and pulling the lid off the small box inside. A note lay on top, written in Francine's elaborate handwriting: "Merry Christmas – Francine and Marc". He read it, dropped it onto the bed, and examined the gift underneath. Nestled in tissue paper, there was a miniature bottle of vodka and next to it lay a decorated penknife, the dark red handle inlaid with steel scrolling. He pulled open a couple of the blades, grating the pad of his finger over the edges to test their quality. Not bad – he smiled, grateful that she'd thought of him, but then the feeling turned sour as, in the back of his mind, he automatically made a mental note that one of the blades was long enough and strong enough to be used to kill.

He returned everything to the box quickly and then put it back on the table, feeling a little sick, putting the thoughts out of his head.

At Disneyland, it was cold, but bright, and, as far as Kurtis was concerned, joylessly festive. The rich decorations inside the restaurant, and the view outside onto the fake snow and dazzling lights of Main Street, were nice to look at but didn't really stir any excitement in him. He just smiled widely, wished all his customers a happy Christmas, and weaved his way quickly and skilfully between the crowded tables with plates balanced on his forearms and a dozen requests for more drinks or the clearing of tables thrown at him from all directions. It was the same with the other workers – every one of them had taken the Christmas Day shift because they were from other religions or had nothing better to do, because they weren't a part of the day. They were busy. Busy and determined to help each other. In amongst it all, he didn't have to think.

He sidled in behind the cash register to run a bill as Amita, a young Hindu woman who always gleefully reaped the financial benefits of not following Western holidays, approached and held out a handful of cocktail stirrers, the ends concealed in her fist.

"Mickey's got a hang over."

"What?" Kurtis asked, fully stopping what he was doing.

"There's a Meet and Greet with Mickey scheduled but the guy's not turned up or called in. One of us is going to have to do it."

"That mouse is a dirty stop-out. Probably up all night nailing Minnie." Amita grinned sardonically at the joke and Kurtis returned to jabbing buttons on the register. "Count me out."

"No, no, no. We're drawing straws. Pick one."

"Oh, come on." Kurtis turned away from his task once more and leant against the counter, looking rather averse to the idea.

"Pick one," Amita insisted. "I already did, and Pierre made sure I didn't cheat. So has everyone in the kitchen. Come on."

Sighing, Kurtis pulled a stirrer out of her grasp. The end was snapped off. Shrugging apologetically, Amita revealed the other stirrers, their ends all intact.

"Fuck," Kurtis groaned.

"Costuming department," Amita ordered. "Go. Go, go! I'll take that bill. Hurry! We're too busy to hang around!" Throwing his tea towel down on the counter, Kurtis yanked off his apron and was shooed off down the stairs, his footsteps heavy.

* * *

Mickey Mouse's head was heavier than Kurtis thought it had any right to be, and he was sure it was going to fall off - and traumatise some kid in the process – as he gingerly climbed the stairs to the restaurant's dining area in the oversized feet of his costume.

"Are you alright?" The question, though muffled by the costume head, had clearly come from his escort, Andreas. With limited vision and hearing, and even more limited movement, Andreas was Kurtis' lifeline, there to be his eyes, ears and spokesperson. "I've got the hard job here. I'm the one who has to keep the kids under control. And some of the adults, too. You just sign autographs and act happy, ok? It'll be fine."

"Yeah, like fu—"

"And don't speak!"

They had barely rounded the top of the stairs when there was a screech.

"Mickey!"

Obviously, thankfully, having been asked to remain seated already, the restaurant didn't descend on him in a solid wall of hugs and autograph books, but the place was still filled with cheers and greetings and waving, fidgeting children.

"Wave, you idiot," Andreas prompted out of the corner of his mouth. A little taken aback, Kurtis just did as he was told.

The Meet and Greet wasn't as bad as he'd expected, but it was still uncomfortable. Kurtis was hardly the type of person to go around hugging everybody, holding overly-gloved hands to a set mouth in a show of giggles, and covering his cartoon eyes in horror when a toddler burst into terrified tears. But he did it.

When the shift was finally over – including two horrific stints as the iconic mouse – and the park was closed, Kurtis made for the exit as fast as he could.

"Kurtis! Hey!"

Almost deciding to pretend he couldn't hear, Kurtis stopped and turned. Several of his colleagues from the restaurant were gathered at the doors, huddled in coats and waving to him. "We're all going for a drink. Come on!"

"Oh, I don't know," he began, meandering back towards them.

"Planet Hollywood," said Stacey shortly, marching forwards, grabbing his jacket sleeve and pulling him after her.

"Yeah, come on," Pierre encouraged as he and a few others caught up. "We'll buy your drinks since you had to dress up."

Kurtis wasn't exactly enthused, but he pretended to be, for manners' sake. He would probably end up enjoying it anyway, if he was honest with himself. "Well, if you're buying, who am I to say no?"

They made straight for the bar, draping their coats on the end of a booth with permission from its occupants. There was barely room to move and Kurtis knew, not least from several of the familiar faces, that it was down to groups of Cast Members just like his. He doubted there were even any park guests in the place.

"What are you having?" Pierre yelled, having forced his way to the bar for service.

Screw driving home. "Beer!"

That beer was the first of a few, along with a couple of liquors. It was late, but still overcrowded, still noisy, and still Christmas.

"Here," Amita said, handing him his drink from her round. She squashed in next to him at the end of the booth they'd manage to get and chinked her glass against his with a smile. Some of their group had left already, but most were still there, chattering away in smaller sets around their table covered in empty glasses and crisp packets.

"Haven't you got a boyfriend to go home to, Amita?" Kurtis asked, not really meaning it as a pick up line.

"I've got a fiancé, but he's not at home. I'm living with my parents 'til I'm married."

"When's that?"

"Next year." She settled back into her seat, wriggling her shoulders as a signal for Kurtis to make room. He turned sideways on to give her space and talk to her more easily, crushing his arm into the padded backrest.

"Arranged marriage, right?"

Amita nodded. "His name's Gursharan. He works at the Paris National."

"Do you love him?"

She made an uncaring face. "I like him, it's enough for now."

Kurtis laughed. "You sound pretty casual about it."

"Marriage is a different thing for me than for you. I don't really think about it all that much."

Looking a little melancholy, Kurtis flopped back onto his back, significantly lower in his seat than he had been. The depressant effect of the alcohol was clearly not something he was immune to. "I don't think I'll ever marry." He sounded regretful.

"Are you the type to want to?" Amita smirked. "I thought Casanovas liked being single."

"I just need someone to go home to," Kurtis sighed. "Don't you worry? That you won't love Gursharan?"

Amita prodded him. "You're drunk. You've had enough. Go home."

He stared at the drink in his hand, resting on his chest, mournfully. "You're right. I'm drunk." He knocked back the remaining contents of his glass and then pushed himself to his feet and edged out of the booth. He still had his balance – the main casualty of the evening was clearly just his emotional state. That and his self control.

He turned to leave but in doing so he knocked into a young man just making his way through the crowds. The man's drink slopped over the side of the glass a little, leaving light brown splotches on his white shirt.

"Sorry," Kurtis automatically said before he'd even really registered what had happened. He didn't even think to say it in French.

"Touristes de merde!" The man began to continue on his way, looking angered but clearly deciding to just let it go.

"Hey!" Kurtis snapped, suddenly feeling a lot more focused. "Je parle francais, copain!" His tone was purposefully snide, provocative.

The man stopped and glared.

Kurtis punched him.

The fight broke out amidst shouting and attempted intervention and every vulgarity they could muster in any language they knew.

* * *

As he stepped in through his apartment door not very much later, turned on the lights and fingered gingerly at the still-bleeding cut on his forehead, the rustling from Kurtis' lounge area scared him. He jumped, turning towards the sound, reaching for a gun that he no longer carried.

It was Karl, shifting on the tattered armchair, still in his woollen overcoat.

"You're slipping, Kurtis. You didn't even notice me." He eyed Kurtis' sweat-marred skin, bruises, and dried blood trails. "And you apparently lost whatever brawl it was you were just in."

"Karl, you bastard. What the fuck are you doing in my place?" Kurtis, sobered by the fight, the bouncers' rough eviction of him from the bar, and the drunk motorbike ride home without a helmet in the cold night, glared before stomping around to the kitchenette and reaching for another drink. "Get out."

"'Hospitality', eh?" Karl held up a white slip of paper and examined it with narrowed eyes. "You work in fucking Disneyland." He laughed.

Kurtis, walking up to him with drink in hand, snatched the payslip back and slammed it down onto the table. "I said get out."

"I've heard of people going straight, but, Christ. Couldn't you have got something better?" An amusing thought occurred to him. "Vegas," he said, pointing his finger at Kurtis decisively, "you should've gone to Las Vegas. With those powers of yours you could be making a fortune. No-one would ever work out how _you_ levitated yourself onto a wall, that's for sure."

"Out!"

Karl remained in the chair but changed tack, regarding Kurtis with weary seriousness. "Just what are you trying to do?"

"Go to bed?"

"Sit down, Kurtis, sit down." Karl waved a hand casually at the other chair and, sighing, Kurtis did as he was asked.

"What do you want, Karl?"

"We've known each other a while, haven't we? I like to think I was a bit of a mentor when you first joined the…'industry'. I got you some of your first jobs."

"So?"

"Just what are you running from?"

Kurtis widened his eyes theatrically in a show of non-understanding, so Karl pressed the issue.

"Why are you working the most unsuitable job for you that you could find? What, are you saving up for a picket fence out there?"

Trent sighed, leaning back into the chair and taking a sip of his bourbon. He didn't answer.

"Where's all your money?"

"Spent it all chasing the guy who murdered my dad."

"Your job got him killed?"

"No."

"Was he your last relative?"

"Jesus, drop it!" Kurtis exhaled sharply, tapping his short fingernails on the cut glass restlessly and refusing to look at his visitor. Karl took out a cigarette and lit up.

"Just trying to find out what you're doing, that's all."

"Yeah, well don't."

Karl shrugged and then reached into his inside pocket and drew out an envelope, tossing it onto the coffee table between them. "I thought you might like to know that Demidov has taken on the job of finding those skulls."

Suddenly engaged, Kurtis looked up sharply. "Demidov?" He gained a slow nod in reply. Reaching forwards, he picked up the envelope and pulled out its contents, unfolding the sheets of paper and glancing over them. Dropping them slightly to allow his gaze to meet with Karl's once more, he stared for a moment. "Demidov'll kill 'er."

"If she resists."

"Oh, she'll resist," Kurtis said shortly. Not taking his eyes off his friend, he folded the paper back up and ran his fingers slowly along the creases, sharpening them further. His words took on a slower tempo, lightly menacing. "Did you hire him? Are you forcing my hand here because you can't stand me getting out of the game?"

Karl looked nonplussed for a moment, and then threw his head back and outright laughed. "You think pretty highly of yourself, don't you?"

"No!" Kurtis leant forwards suddenly, throwing the papers back at Karl. "No! I have a job, and friends and—"

"I remember you!" Karl's interruption was louder, more forceful, and a definite show of a vicious side that Kurtis knew was rarely shown, rarely needed to be. "I remember you gunning down a child in the back as she ran for safety because there was a chance she might draw attention to us. I remember you executing a prisoner. I remember you _torturing_ another one!"

"I'm not that way anymore!"

Kurtis was standing, had jumped up out of his seat to yell his defence without even realising it. He continued to stand there, staring down at Karl who only sat calmly in the faded chair and looked back at him with a blank expression and the patience of somebody who was waiting for more. He'd got what he wanted. He always had.

Kurtis turned away, anxious hands clasping in his hair, eyes screwed shut in an effort to make everything go away.

"Like you're such a fucking saint," he whispered.

"I know exactly what I am," Karl replied.

"I went soft." Kurtis slumped, defeated. "I can't be that person anymore. I _feel_ now. Since dad…"

"And doesn't it make it so much worse?"

Kurtis didn't reply. He stared at the floor and remembered his first vision from the idol. Lara dead in Mexico.

As if reading his thoughts, Karl asked, "Are you going after her then?"

"No." Kurtis shook his head, taking a few restless steps forwards, away from Karl.

She was poison, a drug. With her in his head he couldn't break away from that life, but he couldn't have it either, and the grey area was killing him.

"No," he repeated more forcefully. "I'm done. I'm out."

"You're going to let Demidov kill her? That's not what I call 'soft'."

"She'll be able to look after herself if someone warns her. You can do that, right? Make sure she knows what she's up against?" Kurtis laughed bitterly. "The bitch has got way too high an opinion of herself. She'll only underestimate him if she's left to it."

There was a rustling as Karl picked up the intelligence reports he'd gathered and stuffed them back into his coat. Dropping his cigarette butt into Kurtis' empty glass on the table, he moved to the door. "I'll mention your name. So she listens, like."

Kurtis smiled sourly, laughing a little. "So she listens. Yeah. Thanks, Karl."

He continued to stand there, rubbing the back of his neck, as Karl let himself out. In the dim quiet of his apartment, he ground his palms into his eyes and groaned in frustration.


	15. There But For The Grace Of God

**Many thanks for the all the reviews I got for the last chapter, and the French help a couple of you offered. It's all good. :-)**

Soundtrack: Revenge by Thrive

_There But For The Grace Of God _**  
**

A respected university's physics department website sat open on Lara's laptop. She slouched in her chair in her hotel room, leaning on the desk with her head in her hand, staring at the screen from an undesirable angle with a deeply irritated expression on her face. The student notes on acoustics she was viewing were making very little sense to her, and her research was definitely going nowhere. She tapped the computer impatiently and gave a harsh sigh.

Her mobile phone's muted beeps broke the silence from somewhere within her bag and, almost suspicious, Lara looked at it. She'd just got a text message – probably something from her service provider.

Frustrated by her research, she answered the phone's call, crossing to the bed where her backpack lay and delving around for the underused handset. Her fingers closing around it, she pulled it out roughly and checked the sender.

A number she didn't recognise.

Lara scoffed. Most likely it was from that bastard, Trent. Probably begging for her whereabouts so that he could come crawling back for more adventure after skipping out on her.

She pursed her lips, feeling a pang of guilt. She'd had no choice but to run, she reminded herself. He was unconscious and in no immediate danger; she was being attacked in an enclosed area. If he hadn't made it back to the hotel himself in a reasonable amount of time, she'd have gone looking for him. She certainly wouldn't have checked out without a by-your-leave.

Flopping down onto the bed with a sullen look on her face, Lara opened the message.

_I'm a friend of Kurtis Trent's. You're in danger. Mercenary called Demidov has been paid to get skulls. Highly dangerous. Watch your back._

Lara was almost offended - it certainly wasn't what she'd expected. With a huff, she deleted the message and tossed the phone back into the bag.

The hours of fruitless website-trawling at a cramped desk had left her mentally and physically tense, and the text message certainly hadn't helped her mood.

Pulling her top quickly over her head and yanking at the zip on her jeans, she undressed quickly, leaving her clothes and underwear where they fell, and lay back on the bed. A swift kick moved her bag out of the way, sending it falling heavily to the floor. She closed her eyes, ran her hands down her body, and sought to relax.

Later, she lay motionless on the bed, sated but bored. The sun had gone down, shadows setting in around her and her body growing chilly in the air conditioned room. Unwilling to move, she rolled her head to the side and looked at the bedside clock. It was early evening – dinner-time. She wasn't hungry.

Forcing herself off the bed, she crossed to the window and looked out, not caring if anyone saw her. The rooms rose around three sides of a paved central pool area, now deserted. Tall lamps cut across the rectangle in swathes of yellow light, forcing back the aggressive shadows in small but regularly-placed areas, seemingly shying away from the much darker and more ominous thick foliage that lined the fourth side. The curving paths into those jungle gardens had smaller lamps suspended from chains strung high, and the weaker illumination did little to make those areas seem safe. The pool was closed to guests after dark; it was the perfect time for a swim. Lara quirked a smile and turned to gather her things.

Up close, the pool was even more tempting. The water was still and blue, inviting, begging to be disturbed. The air was silent. Lara took one last look to make sure she hadn't been seen, and pulled off the khaki cotton dress that concealed her swimming costume. She left it heaped at the poolside and, wishing to remain quiet, slid carefully into the water.

It was delightfully cool, smothered her skin, made soft ripples. Happy, Lara pushed herself forwards into an easy breaststroke.

Reaching the end, she pulled herself into the side and then turned carefully before kicking off again. After only one stroke, she was stopped.

Her dress was gone.

She trod water for a moment, looking around. She hadn't seen or heard any movement, and the place appeared to be as deserted as it had been when she arrived. There was no sign of anyone. She lunged forwards again, swimming faster now that she had a destination, and quickly reached the other end. Pulling herself out, she got to her feet slowly and looked around again.

Her dress was nowhere to be seen, and neither was the person who had moved it. Peering at the leafy trees that edged the patio and listening hard yielded no sign of anyone. Looking for her dress once more, she glanced underneath the pool chairs and then strode forwards to check the shrubs bordering the wall. Sure enough, it had been thrown in amongst them.

Making one last check for company, she bent to retrieve it. It was then that she was attacked.

How he'd moved without her hearing it, without her noticing any movement, she didn't know, but she was hit hard in the side of the head and then stamped on as she fell, leaving her pinned to the floor with a heavy boot on the back of her neck.

"Lara Croft?" an unfamiliar, accented voice demanded.

"Demidov," she returned, forcing the word out, the side of her face crushed into the paving.

"I thought maybe you'd get a warning, knowing Trent. Lucky for me you were too self-assured to listen to it."

"You want the skulls?"

"Yes."

She struggled vainly, trying to force herself up from under his heavy weight. Bracing with her toes and pushing with the flats of her hands against the ground achieved nothing and he only laughed quietly, allowing her to make the useless attempt for his own amusement.

She gave up, falling weakly back in her prone position. They remained there for a moment, silent.

As fast and as suddenly as she could, Lara rolled her hips slightly to the side to give her leg enough freedom to move, and swept it across the ground in a straight kick aimed blindly at the foot and ankle of Demidov's supporting leg. He reacted quickly, transferring his weight to the foot on her neck momentarily, drawing a cry from her, hopping his other leg back out of the way. His gun, previously held limply at his side, was immediately readied and aimed straight at her head with two firm hands. The failed scuffle and the sound of the weapon's safety being taken off pushed her instantly back into submission.

"Alright, alright!" Lara cried, scrunching her eyes shut. "Alright! Don't shoot! You've got me."

"I know where your room is," Demidov murmured, focusing his aim.

"The skulls aren't in my room," Lara quickly supplied. "They're in the hotel safe. Even you must prefer that I get them out for you."

The mercenary narrowed his eyes, considering. He relaxed, dropping his weapon and removing his foot from her neck. Relieved, she slowly pushed herself to her feet and turned to face him.

Fully decked out in heavy black combat gear and carrying more than one visible weapon, her assailant was pale, blonde and scarred on his face. The eyes were hard, his face a little surly.

Not taking his gaze from her, he pulled off the flak jacket, tugged the T-shirt underneath from his waistband, and tossed his guns and jacket into the bushes. A small knife was retrieved from a pouch on his trousers and tucked, more discreetly, into his belt. He looked her over, standing there damp in her swimming costume.

"I can see _you're_ not carrying any weapons, so this knife should be fine."

He was still obviously dressed in military clothing, but his modified outfit would pass for nothing more than street fashion.

"Let's go," he offered, gesturing her forwards with almost a gentlemanly air.

Scrutinising him for a moment first, Lara turned to lead the way.

Almost immediately, she turned back and punched him hard in the stomach, following it up with a knee to his groin, a shove backwards and, with the extra room that afforded her, a kick to his chest.

He was winded and pained, vulnerable for a moment, bent over. She stepped forwards to attack again, but he recovered far faster than she expected, dodging, grabbing her arm as she went to punch him and, with the skill of a trained fighter, dropping to one knee to send her crashing painfully to the stone slabs.

He left himself unavoidably open as he moved to continue his offence, still pinning her arm. With her free hand she fought back by shoving her palm into his chin, forcing his head back. That was quickly followed by a foot driven into his stomach to lift him off her, and as he stumbled backwards she scrambled to her feet again.

She tried to turn him away and sweep his feet out from under him, but he somehow managed to hook his foot around her ankle first, knocking her to the ground once more.

Lara hit her unprotected hipbone as she contacted the ground, curling up from the agony for a moment. It left her defenceless, and Demidov hoisted her back up so that she faced away from him and then knocked her to the ground once more with a heavy kick to her side.

He was resilient, agile and fast, and still had the usual strength and weight of a male opponent - Lara depended on her enemies being slower and clumsier to make up for her slighter frame. Demidov was a tough match.

Her body heavily grazed and her bare knees throbbing from taking the brunt of the latest fall, Lara couldn't move for a moment, panting as she knelt on all fours.

She suddenly heard him behind her, the fast movement making it clear he was about to attack again. She knew that if their places were reversed, she'd be about to flip him onto his back, straddle him, and either strangle him or break his neck. She'd be about to kill him.

Gasping with desperation, she made to turn over as he crouched over her and elbow him as she went. Her defence was too late. She wouldn't have made it.

With a metallic screech, the fire escape folded against the side of the hotel above them failed, swinging down, gracefully at first but quickly picking up speed to a frightening approach. The ladder folded along its bottom swung free, hung straight down, and its foot impaled Demidov with rapid ease.

He stopped mid-attack, raised above her, the bloodied metal poking through his chest, drops of crimson falling to Lara's breast beneath him.

He'd been hit right through his heart.

An agonised gurgling escaped from his mouth, his expression frozen with wide eyes and a look of tortured horror.

Lara scrambled back out from under him, panicked for a moment. She hadn't been hit by the fire escape. She was ok.

A few gasps worked their way out from Demidov and his eyes moved and focused, looking at her with an unreadable stare. They drifted back to the ground, and then he slumped.

Lara stared at him for a moment, swearing quietly to herself.

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck." That had been far too close a call.

Thoughts of witnesses suddenly came to mind and she whirled, her eyes darting all around to check her surroundings.

The place was as empty and quiet as it had appeared to be before Demidov had made himself known, and the only distant sound from the hotel was the thumping of bass from the bar. All of the windows around and above her had closed curtains or darkened rooms. Thank god for the short dinner that sent most of the guests to the dining room at the same time.

Moving quickly, she wrapped her arms under the corpse's shoulders and heaved him off the ladder, the flesh squelching as he came away and the wound bleeding heavily all over her. She let him drop to the ground and then turned him onto his back, grabbed hold of his arms, and dragged him.

Around the corner, through a small border and hidden away in a bricked enclosure, were the rubbish bins, large skip-like receptacles. Lara pushed the shoulder-high lid up and then, groaning from the exertion, managed to heft the dead weight into her arms and shove it into the refuse. She clambered up on boxes and overflowed bags and climbed in on top of the waste that came right up to the bin's top. Frantically, not caring what she touched, she grasped and pulled at the rubbish to pile it on top of Demidov and bury him in the garbage.

His still-open eyes were the last things to be covered, and she shoved his face down into the grave and covered it with rotting vegetable peelings from a split bag.

Back at the pool, the ladder was wiped clean with Demidov's flak jacket, which was buried in the border along with his other discarded articles, and the fire escape given a hard shove upwards. It conceded, the springs taking it back the rest of the way.

Dunking herself in the pool to wash off the filth and blood, knowing that no-one would notice the dirty, discoloured water until the sun had risen, when she would be long gone, Lara cleaned herself up as best she could and pulled her dress roughly back over her head.

She stopped, then, suddenly overcome. Why the escape had swung open when it seemed to be holding itself closed with no problem now, she didn't know. All she knew was that she had been very, very lucky.

Sitting down carefully at the side of the water, she drew her knees to her chest for warmth and watched the still surface sit silent and un-telling. Only fifteen minutes previously, she'd been happily swimming.

* * *

Still up in the early hours, Kurtis sat on the sill of his open window with his back to the frame and one leg hanging down to the floor on the inside. Dark, cold, puddled from an earlier shower, the street was quiet. Sighing, Kurtis took another swig of his beer. "Thank you," he said.


	16. Force

**Hello again. This chapter was a really difficult one to write - that, and RL being as crazy-busy as usual, has led to yet another extended break. -_- As ever, thank you to all my readers and reviewers, both old and new. :-)**

Soundtrack: Lifeline by Cirque du Soleil (Delirium)

_Force_

She made a show of raising an eyebrow as she scanned the front-page story of the newspaper. The picture of the hotel Lara had left two days ago would have been a clear indication as to the story's contents even if it hadn't been an English-language publication aimed at tourists and ex-pats.

"Brutal Murder Of Dead Man In Belize," the headline read.

Anyone would be forgiven for thinking it was an amusingly poor grasp of English but, no, on closer inspection it became clear that the police had found Demidov's papers and already worked out he'd been travelling under the identity of someone who'd died from liver failure eight years earlier.

Feeling suitably distanced from it all from her new hotel back in Mexico, she gave a satisfied sigh. Yes, she was quite safe. The police thought it was probably drug-trade related, she'd kept her cool long enough to not check out of that hotel until lunchtime the next day which would lessen the chance she'd be picked out as someone leaving at a coincidental moment once they'd placed the time of death, and she'd had no trouble crossing the borders to a country relatively far away. It was an extra comfort that her current hosts thought her name was Claire Stryke.

She dropped the paper back on the pile and turned to the counter of the hotel's convenience shop to pay for her snacks.

Lara was setting off for a little experimentation. After her encounter at Checham Ha and Kurtis' subsequent abandonment, she'd relocated to Belize City for a little distance and the use of their university's library. That, combined with online journals and an almost constant replay of the latest vision in her mind, had filled several days prior to Demidov's visit with hours upon hours of draining, often fruitless, research – research that had, ultimately, seemingly, thankfully, told her what to do.

The fact that the vision had been quite adamant that she was to do it with Kurtis was something she was steadfastly ignoring. When it came to Kurtis, the idol could go hang.

That particular thought saw her storming across the plaza at Chitchen Itza with some speed despite the heavy bag on her back and the blazing sun. The ground was hard and dry beneath her feet, uncomfortable through her thin soled pumps. She was dressed for tourism rather than adventuring – no point drawing too much attention.

She realised she'd broken out in quite a sweat as she stopped at the end of the ancient ball court and let her bag slip from her back. She wiped the droplets from her shoulders, adjusted her top, and fanned herself as she eyed the tourist-specked Temple Of The Warriors not too far away.

How typical that she should have to travel hundreds of miles collecting skulls only to find that her ultimate destination was back where one of those skulls had been hidden.

The sports arena that she now stood on was long, relatively featureless, and bounded by high stone walls with a temple-like structure at each end. Mayans would play here, trying to bat balls through stone hoops high on the walls, the game, no doubt, as fast and furious as one would expect from a culture that valued blood and ended their sports with the decapitation of a team captain. The sparse yellowed grass and relentlessly harsh sun did nothing for the area's almost unwelcoming atmosphere.

Climbing to the top of the nearest temple, she stood and waited. Sure enough, a couple of tourists meandered their way up to the top of the opposite structure almost five hundred feet away.

"Hello," said Lara conversationally. "Can you hear me?"

A moment later the tourists started, and then turned and looked straight at her. One waved. "Hello!"

The reply, uttered at not too loud a volume at a distance normally far out of earshot, was perfectly clear, spookily disembodied as it floated in the air around her.

"Where are you from?"

"Vicksburg, Louisiana. And you, Miss?"

Lara couldn't help but give a slight smile. "Buckinghamshire, England." She gave a short wave to signal the end of their little rapport and ran back down the steps.

The phenomenon was not one that surprised her – she'd heard of it enough times, as had any tourist to the site. As counter-intuitive as it was, the fact that words spoken at a normal volume on one terrace of that ball court could be heard clearly on the other five hundred feet away often saw visitors a little confused for a moment before they realised what was going on the first time they climbed those steps.

No-one really knew why or how the acoustics were as they were – many had been fascinated, many had tried to pin down the exact physics or cultural meaning, many had speculated. None of them had been privy to the idols' vision.

Coming to a secluded corner behind the end of the ball court, all infertile soil and scrubby plants, Lara spied a series of pots, all similar in design but increasing in size, lined up. They were rather dirty and obviously left well alone for the most part. Not the most interesting of artefacts in the area, she had to admit.

She picked up a stick lying adjacent and rapped the side of the pots in succession. A series of rounded tones played out a well-tuned scale. Lara smiled to herself, sat down, checked her watch, and pulled a sandwich out of her bag.

When darkness had fallen a few hours later, Lara, now in her proper gear, crept out of her hiding place in the thick vines and foliage still grasping at the edge of the complex and made her way through the intermittent shadows back towards the ball court on the other side. Floodlights lit the ancient buildings and much of the expanse in between, but the guards on duty were bored, unconcerned, and easily avoided. She slipped past one within feet of him, pausing to take a sly peek at the porn video he was viewing on his mobile phone. Men – so easily distracted. Perhaps she didn't really need the amusement she'd prepared for them after all.

She decided not to risk it, though – no point in wasting good explosives, after all, she thought to herself with a cocked eyebrow.

Standing unnoticed at the corner of the ball court's nearest temple, Lara pulled the small remote control from her pocket and firmly pressed the button.

The jungle that had previously held her so quietly lit up like daytime in the distance, the plants and trees battered by the concussion, the noise of the detonation disturbingly loud for what was a relatively harmless and small bomb. Wildlife scattered, the shrieking, cracking and rustling of a frantic getaway following the blast for a short moment before fading just as fast. Every guard on duty sprinted towards the explosion.

Shaking off her initial shock at just how intense her distraction had been, Lara quickly grabbed two of the clay pots she'd found earlier, one in each hand, and darted up the temple steps to lay them on the terrace. Two more followed, and then she hefted the last, largest, one in her arms and added that to the collection.

Shouting, commotion, getting progressively worse, failed to penetrate her anticipation and excitement but when the dancing reds and oranges in the distance caught her eye, Lara was halted dead in her tracks. The jungle was on fire.

Mouth open in silent shock, eyes wide, she could only stare from her vantage point on the raised terrace. The sky was lit behind a veil of smoke, the stars obscured, flames visible within the tree tops, the very fabric of the forest shaking with panicked, fleeing animals.

Another, closer, shout caught her attention and, to her horror, she saw a guard staring straight at her. The others were still occupied bringing out fire hoses, hacking down nearby low-lying plants to try to halt the burning, unlocking the gates to make way for the desperately awaited fire service. This one, however, had seen her.

Snapping out of it first, he darted forwards, rapidly covering the several hundred yards between them. Lara dove into action equally fast.

Snatching up a chemical flare stowed on the strap of her backpack, she rapped the pots in a fast succession, just like she had seen in her vision. The notes resounded, round drawn-out tones, bouncing to the ball-court's opposite temple and back again, reverberating, resonating, the echoes feeding each other, building up into a ear-splitting harmony. Lara clapped her hands over her ears, screwed her eyes shut as if it might help, dropped to her knees. The din filled the entire complex, overcoming the blazing jungle, stopping her pursuer in his tracks, crippling the others' efforts to contain the fire as the unidentified sound deafened and confused them.

Quickly, it faded, and Lara, able to move again, fled. Leaping down the temple steps and sprinting across the ball court, she just ran and did not look back.

A low rumbling, felt before it was heard, took up, the vibrations hurting her ears and filling the whole area once more. The ground began to shake, barely at first but becoming more and more violent until, still running, Lara stumbled under its onslaught. Ignoring the graze in her knee, she found her feet once more and pushed on, racing for the jungle at the far end of the court, not calmed by the assurance that she was probably no longer being chased.

She knew what was happening, the guards didn't, but the fire and the earthquake were still terrifyingly large-scale demonstrations of nature's power. A power she was seeking to own.

Just seconds later the tremors, as the sounds that caused them, faded to nothing. Lara forced her way into the jungle, the fire still some distance away, and moved forwards as fast as she could, flicking on her torch. Finding the paved road she'd shortcut to, unlit, she ran again.

At its end, the epicentre of the earthquake, she came to a rapid halt at the edge of the Sacred Cenote.

A large sinkhole, the water's surface was significantly lower than it should have been and still rippled from the tremors, breaking the atmosphere of unsettling peace that usually surrounded such areas of mass human sacrifice. Several metres down at the muddy bottom of that pond lay the bones of countless Mayan victims. The water was dirty, rotting leaves bobbing on its surface, silt stirred up and not yet settling. The sound of the fire and the approaching fire engines was distant and otherworldly.

Steeling herself for the shock of the cold water, Lara dived in.

Her torch illuminated only the smallest of areas in front of her but she kicked downwards regardless, quickly reaching the bottom and then moving out to the walls. From there she felt her way around until her hands closed around the edge of a tunnel entrance. No doubt this opening, formed in response to the ringing clay pots, was what had caused the ground to shake and the water level to fall.

Lara surfaced, refilled her lungs, and dove straight back down to the tunnel, pulling herself into it and drawing herself along with her hands on the walls in calm and practised movements.

Short enough to be a comfortable dive, apart from the numbing cold, the way opened out into a large, water-filled cavern, the waters inside cleaner and even icier. Lara surfaced, taking in fresh breaths of the crisp air and striking forwards with cramping muscles to the sloping dry ground rising up out of the water around the edge of the cave.

It was dreadfully cold and as soon as she was out she wrung out her hair, brushed the droplets off her bare skin, danced on her toes and rubbed her arms, desperately seeking warmth. A jolting shiver ran through her.

She had to press on – she was so close. These were her final steps, the vision had assured her of that. All she had to do…

Jogging around the circumference of the cave, still shivering, she made for the triangle of smooth, chiselled rock set just below the natural level of the floor. Within were three raised circular platforms, set at the vertices of a smaller, invisible triangle, each just large enough to hold a crystal skull.

She removed the artefacts from her bag, setting them down carefully in the colour order she had been shown. Blue, purple, pink. The blue and the pink needed to be depressed. In the vision she had taken one and Kurtis had taken the other but if she knelt between them and outstretched her arms she could easily place a hand atop each skull and slowly, carefully, holding her breath in anticipation…push.

The platforms sank. Stone ground against stone.

Nothing happened.

Her eyes widening in shock and growing horror, she let the skulls rise up and then tried again. And again. And again, in increasingly fast and forceful attempts.

Nothing was happening.

The idol wanted that son of a bitch and it wasn't going to open the door until he was there. Screaming in frustration, Lara snatched up the idol from where it sat peeking smugly from under the flap of her bag and hurled it at the stoic walls. It rebounded, in one piece, and bounced and clattered away across the floor before falling into the lake and sinking rapidly.

Still shivering, now in anger as much as cold, Lara drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around them, her face murderous. Ripples swam outwards from the spot where the idol had fallen and above her, the jungle burned.


	17. Stark

**Wow, another update after only a week! This was a fun one to write, so it came a little easier. :-) Thank you to Hinata and OveractiveImaginer, who've been sticking with me through my extended absences! **

Soundtrack: Bone of Contention by Spirit Of The West

_Stark_

Striding forwards and pushing the vacuum cleaner in front of him into the reception area of the restaurant, Kurtis found an obstacle in his path.

"Excuse me, Francine, baby."

He planted his hands on either side of his colleague, just above her waist, and lifted her up onto the first step of the stairs, the banister of which she'd been polishing. Having removed her from out of his way, he continued to vacuum. Francine frowned good-naturedly.

"I'm not property to be hefted around, Mr Trent," she objected in a raised voice over the loud hum of the hoover.

"You're no fun, Francine. Any other woman would be getting all giddy and giggling at me from behind their duster."

"It's my immunity to your charms that keeps you so steadfastly engaged in our friendship."

"It is that." He looked up and smiled, and had a tongue stuck out at him in return.

"How was your date last night, anyway?"

"You mean my date with the single, sexually frustrated, fake-chested, extremely friendly friend of yours? It was gold." He grinned towards the floor.

Francine gasped harshly, her horror only partially affected. "Kurtis Trent!" she admonished. "I did not set you up with her so that you could get another notch on your bedpost."

She received a shrug as if it was an excuse. "If women want to be notches on my bedpost, who am I to turn them away?"

"I thought you were complaining you were lonely."

"For the long term," Kurtis sighed, "she's not my type. But thanks for trying."

"So," she pushed, "what is your type?"

"Francine, honey, if you were single…"

A duster was thrown. "Behave yourself!"

Kurtis laughed to himself and then looked up to continue his conversation, but found Francine suddenly looking concerned, her gaze pulled away to something out of the windows behind him. He turned to see what the matter was.

"I've been seeing that man watching the restaurant most of the day. At first I thought maybe he was just considering eating here but now we're closed and he's still there…"

"Which man?" Kurtis searched the crowds outside. Walt's restaurant had indeed closed not half an hour before but the rest of the theme park was still open and, with the evening parade due past soon, the street outside was far from empty.

Francine turned back to her dusting, not wishing to be seen looking. "Blond hair, long dark coat, leaning against the wall on the other side of the street. Near the lamppost."

Kurtis spotted him. He was definitely watching, and he definitely didn't care that he'd been noticed. Nonchalantly, he started to stroll down towards the bandstand. Kurtis took in a breath. That was a little too close to the behaviour of people in his old line of work.

"I'm sure it's nothing, Francine," he assured her, turning back to her. "If you're worried, I'll walk you to wherever your boyfriend's picking you up and wait with you."

Quietly, she nodded, and Kurtis bit his lip at another unwelcome pang of a warning instinct. Suspicion and paranoia were still deeply ingrained in him when it came to possible danger, leaving him usually far overestimating the risk even if they had saved his life more times than he could remember. If his usually easy-going friend and her dulled civilian senses were spooked, however, then he probably wasn't overreacting.

So, to push away both their fears, Kurtis threw a friendly arm around Francine's shoulders as they left work a while later, and used his free hand to search around for his cigarettes. The man was nowhere in sight, but that didn't mean he wasn't around.

"Where's Robert picking you up?"

"The car park," Francine answered.

Kurtis shrugged. "Cool. My bike's there anyway so I'll just hang with you until he gets here."

"He'll probably be waiting."

"Ok." Kurtis was unconcerned about whether he'd have to wait with her or not. He was in no hurry to get going, and certainly not in a hurry to find out what the guy wanted – after all, in all likelihood, it was him they were after, not Francine, and as long as she was around, they'd probably keep their distance.

Although Kurtis was surreptitiously keeping his eyes peeled, they chatted about nothing in particular as they left the theme park and continued on up to Disney Village, the nightlife area of shops and bars on the way to the hotels. They'd head off through there and then veer off to the car park, the whole short journey most likely shared with tourists and other staff members – nice and safe.

Leaving the Village and the majority of the crowd, they began to turn, meandering past the black lake and the dark lawns, the neon and the music a striking backdrop to the tranquillity into which they moved. It was then that she caught his eye.

Lara Croft.

Lara Croft, hurrying with a rather tense posture, towards them, over the bridge. The area wasn't too brightly lit, but it was definitely her. The soft lamps shone on the long plait over her shoulder and the cold January breeze ruffled her fashionable mac, her fists in her pockets. Peering a little, Kurtis quickly saw why she looked so uncomfortable – she, too, was being followed. At a text-book distance behind her, a man with floppy brown hair, jeans and a brown leather jacket, matched her pace. Kurtis slowed, pulling Francine back with him, ignoring her questioning. Close now, Lara noticed him, but, with something approaching selflessness, chose not to draw him into her problems.

She broke the eye contact without so much as a flicker of recognition on her face and continued on past him, not even slowing. Pretty sure that the two men were working together and already knew his links to Croft – thus them both being followed – Kurtis didn't play along, and just turned to watch as she walked past.

As he suspected would happen – because, after all, it was just his luck – his own tail melted from the Village crowd two dozen metres behind them and purposefully approached, stopping Lara in her tracks.

She turned to find the first man stood amiably just a few metres away.

"Lara," Kurtis said, calling her to him. Looking sullen, she shot him a look before glaring once more at the man following her and then moving to stand next to her comrade.

"Kurtis…" Francine began, but he shushed her with a gentle shake of her shoulder and their two assailants came to stand to either side of them, one with his hands clasped gently at his front, both of them smiling a little threateningly.

"Guys, I have the money," Kurtis began, holding his hands out in a show of surrender.

The one who'd followed Lara – Kurtis immediately got the impression that he was the leader, although that wasn't what he'd originally thought – looked confused for a moment but then his eyes fell on Francine and realisation dawned.

"You do know it wouldn't be in her best interests, if she can't be trusted?"

"It's ok," Kurtis assured him, "she can be. Just let her go, ok?"

After a moment's thought, the man agreed, nodding. "Ok," he said, gesturing with a tip of his head for her to leave, "she can go."

She looked confused and worried, so Kurtis rested his hands on her shoulders and met her gaze. "Francine, this is just a little business. It's nothing to worry about. They're not bothered about you, so why don't you just go on home, ok? Don't worry, don't do anything, just go home and forget it and I'll explain tomorrow."

"Kurtis," Francine began, but he cut her off and repeated himself more forcefully.

"I said to go home. Just go, ok? Please?"

Her eyes flittered across the group, scared and not understanding. She turned back to Kurtis, still looking back at her imploringly, and nodded slowly. She backed away, wary, before turning and breaking into a run. They watched her skitter across the bricked floor and disappear into the shadows around the corner.

"Thanks, Lara." Kurtis turned to the woman in question and smiled sarcastically.

"I had no idea I was being followed until it was too late," she said tartly.

"We hear," the mop-haired man began, pointedly raising his voice, "that you have some crystal skulls."

"_She_ has some crystal skulls," Kurtis corrected. "I have nothing to do with this, guys, nothing at all. I assume you know who I am, so I assume you know I can be trusted to walk away from this."

Lara glared indignantly. "Thank you very much."

"Why should I care about your problems? Really."

"Shut it," the blonde ordered. He took a step forwards, his expression making it clear that he'd accept no double-act, and continued, a little more amiably. "We're in a public place, we're all experienced in matters such as these, I'm sure we're all capable of – and what's more, keen for – making this a civil, clean deal. Where are the skulls?"

"Not even in this country," Lara sniffed, looking offended. She did up another button on her coat and folded her arms tightly, cold, before looking into the distance pointedly. Kurtis watched her and sighed in annoyance, setting his jaw.

Not too far away, Francine finally got someone to hear the knocking on the staff door at the back of the nearest restaurant. It was opened, and she waved her ID at the young kitchen-hand standing there. "I'm Cast! I think there's going to be a fight outside, we need to call Security!"

Outside, Kurtis was still arguing. "You know that I quit her little job weeks ago, right? I've got nothing to do with this."

"So? Doesn't mean we can't use you."

Trent laughed, amazed. "Oh please." He pointed to Lara. "You seriously think she gives a damn about what happens to me? The woman is a total bitch. She couldn't care less," he said, directing things to her at that point with a fake smile on his face, "about anyone except herself."

Still looking sourly in the other direction, Lara's only reaction was a clicking of her tongue.

The blond mercenary, with the long coat, jabbed a finger towards them both. "I'm losing my patience," he announced.

"Excuse me," a voice interrupted. "Is everything all right?"

All eyes in the group settled on the approaching security guard, regarding them suspiciously with one large hand on his baton.

"Everything's fine, thank you," Lara replied shortly.

"Just a disagreement about sports," the blond man, closest to the guard, offered. "We're not planning on causing any trouble at all. We'll go." He started forwards, one hand out to usher those with him onwards, further from the nightlife.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Lara exclaimed, standing her ground. Kurtis looked pained.

"Lara," he warned through gritted teeth.

"Well I'm not!"

All chance that the guard might let things drop disappeared. "Are you sure everything is all right, ma'am?"

"It'll be fine if I can be allowed to be on my way."

Walking tall, Lara strode forwards.

"Lara," the longhaired mercenary said, faking an entreating tone as if they were friends having a minor argument. He caught at her elbow as she passed.

Instinctively, Lara wrenched her arm free and swung at him. He ducked, lunging away, his jacket flapping open to reveal a shoulder holster and gun. The guard gasped, drawing his baton, dropping into a defensive position, prompting an equally instinctive reaction from the blond, who drew his own concealed weapon with cold ease and levelled it straight at the guard's head even his partner pointed his straight at Lara.

Everyone paused for a moment.

"Kurtis!" Francine's scream, revealing her spectator's position at the corner, drew the weapons' aims naturally towards her. Trent, not far from the long-coated mercenary, grabbed the man's outstretched arm with both hands, kneed him in the stomach, and then moved to kick the weapon free with his other leg. It sailed up into the air and fell back to earth, clattering away across the ground. At the same time, Lara attacked the one closest to her, managing to disarm him just before the security guard shoved her to safety and attempted to take over.

Lacking anything past the very basic training, he was immediately subdued under kicks and punches from the criminal, and Lara could only watch for a moment as she crouched on all fours with grazed knees where she had fallen.

"Hey!" A park guest, tall, muscled, and clearly trained in some sort of combat, suddenly joined the fray, attempting to aid the security guard whilst Kurtis and the blond continued to fight each other with fists and equally matched abilities.

The ability of the one with dark hair, however, was far above those of both the downed guard and the well-meaning guest, and he quickly regained the upper hand. Lara came up behind him, grabbing an upper arm with both hands and using all her strength to try to pull him away and turn him towards her. He reacted by shoving the elbow of that arm back into her face, and jumping to give a strong kick to the ribs of the tourist.

It was at that point that another person cut in – a young boy of about twelve years old. "Dad!" he cried, running to his father's aid, his body showing signs of heading towards being strong and athletic like his father but his mind clearly too young to know how to pick his fights properly. He didn't even manage to reach the man before the mercenary with the long coat, spotting an opportunity, managed to get in a hard punch with the palm of his hand to Kurtis' chin, stunning Trent for a moment. He sprinted for the nearby gun, snatched it up, got back to his feet with stunning speed and grabbed the child as he ran past. The hostage was quickly secured against the blond's body with an arm around his neck and a gun barrel to his head.

The boy's scream halted Kurtis and distracted everyone else except the other mercenary. He forcefully shoved both Lara and the tourist to the ground where the security guard already cowered, dived for his weapon, and trained it on the rest of the group from his position on the floor before slowly, carefully, getting back to his feet.

Not far away, dozens watched in fear.

Nobody said anything and whilst the mercenary's attention was trained securely on the three people who were genuine threats to them, the security guard quietly, shakily, taking advantage of the way his black uniform and dark skin camouflaged him somewhat in the night, crawled away, got to his feet, and began to circle around.

No-one noticed him until his baton was raised and he stepped into a pool of light behind the mercenary and the boy to bring a heavy blow down on the back of the criminal's head.

"John!" the other mercenary cried sharply, and John instinctively swung both him and his hostage around to shoot whatever threatened him.

Something glinted in the air and then, with a dull thud, a blade embedded itself in John's temple. Eyes wide, he crumpled.

The child was the first to scream, crushed under a corpse, frantically clawing his way free.

Kurtis' face was stricken, the full realisation of what he had done, where he had done it, who had seen him do it, all of it hit home. Barely breathing, he caught Francine's eye. Shaking and crying, she was staring back across the distance. It was the penknife she had bought him that she had just seen him murder someone with in a manner tellingly cold and skilled. Screaming, she turned and ran.

As Disneyland erupted into chaos, Lara tugged at Kurtis' arm, bringing him back to the present, pulling him behind her as they fled over the bridge, the gust-rippled lake black and cold beneath them.


	18. Heard

**I really have no clue if I'll be able to keep up this much-improved pace for the remainder of this story so enjoy my productivity while it lasts! This was a pretty easy to chapter to write, actually, which is why it's on time. As ever, hello and thank you to my reviewers!  
**

Soundtrack: Cold Flame by Cirque du Soleil (Delirium)

_Heard_

As Kurtis burst through the door to his apartment, leaving the door to bang against the wall and fly back at Lara as she followed him, he broke the silence with an equally explosive opening.

"You just had to go and do it, didn't you? Keep pushing and keep pushing – " he stopped in the middle of his living room and whirled towards her, "- and keep pushing, until things just crack. Did you seriously think there wouldn't be more after Demidov? And you lead them straight to me?!"

Lara, rather more calm, closed the door and composed herself before replying. "I didn't realise there would be more, no."

"You killed a top mercenary, Lara, leaving the job open for someone else to take and begging – just beggin_g_ – for someone to come and silence the bitch who beat the big boys."

"Bitch?!" Lara was too offended to ask how he knew that Demidov was dead, or to protest her innocence in his slaying. Still, if there was a mercenary gossip mill…

Kurtis, still fuming, swept his hands wide. "That's how they see it. They're mercenaries, Lara, their reputation as tough guys is kind of important to them. You think they don't take it personally when one of them is beaten by a woman?"

"There aren't any female mercenaries?" Lara countered.

"It's a double standard."

Kurtis turned and marched off through a doorway. Lara stood, unsure what to do, listening to the sound of cupboards and drawers being pulled open and the contents being strewn. She was stressed, uncomfortable, and, amazingly, feeling guilty. A couple of minutes later Kurtis reappeared with a large, bulging canvas bag, unfastened, and tossed it onto a chair. More items pulled from storage around the lounge and kitchenette were added to its existing contents of clothes, money and other sundries.

"We need help. Toss me the phone."

Lara glanced around, spotted a cordless phone charging in a cradle next to the television, and silently delivered it. A number was punched in, read from a scrap of paper pulled from somewhere, and Kurtis waited for an answer patiently as he busied himself gathering snacks.

"Pack that up," he ordered, pointing to the food piled on the countertop, and then turned his attention to the phone. "Karl? I need an out."

"Kurtis!" Karl laughed on the other end of the line. "_Tell me_ you're the cause of this ruckus at Disneyland."

"You know?"

"I'm watching the live newscast! This is entertainment gold, mate! There's practically a riot from the panic! They've got crowd control, a body, an arrest… What the fuck were you doing?" In the background, Kurtis could hear the rapid, improvised commentary of a hassled reporter.

"Karl, a man is dead and a child is probably traumatised—why am I even bothering to try to appeal to a conscience you've never had? Look, Lara and I need help."

"Oh, so she's the unidentified woman, eh? We need to get you two out of the country, mate."

"I know. So?"

"We'll do a Chile. Do you remember Chile? Thirty minutes, by the Seine, where I first grabbed you the other week. Got it?"

"Got it. Thanks, Karl." Sighing harshly, Kurtis cut the call with a hard press of the button and threw the phone onto a nearby chair. Taking the canvas bag from Lara, he led the way quickly out of the apartment, flicking off the lights, not looking back.

"Karl is having us picked up and he'll get us out of France. Any idea where you wanna go?"

Lara stopped halfway down the driveway, looking surprised at his question. "Well, Mexico, of course."

That halted Kurtis in his tracks. Turning slowly, he gave her a look of sheer wonder. "You have to be kidding me. Do you seriously not see what's happening here? And you just want to carry on? How fucking stubborn are you?!"

Lara's eyes narrowed. "The only way to end what's happening here _is_ to carry on."

"And get the dagger. To have the power of a god? Tell me, Lara, will he be able to undo all of this? Will he be able to give me back the life I just worked hard building?" Kurtis set his weight on one leg and glared challengingly.

She couldn't meet his gaze, her own dropping away guiltily. Clenching her fists she said, "I'm sorry."

It wasn't enough for Kurtis, who could only look to the heavens imploringly and start off back towards the street. Noticing him turn away, Lara hurried to catch up. "Where are we going?"

"A spot along the river bank, about twenty minutes' walk from here. Karl runs a mercenary business here in Paris. He's got experience, contacts, funds, the works. He'll get us out."

Some time later, having arrived at Karl's place of business and settled in, Kurtis was throwing open the door to his friend's office, stomping inside, and throwing himself into a chair. He propped his feet up on the desk, realised the jacket hanging on the back of the chair had been disturbed and was about to fall, and slapped it to the floor petulantly with a sigh.

Karl looked up slowly from the papers he was working on, his face unamused. "That's my fucking jacket," he said after a pause. He fixed Kurtis with a hard glare and Kurtis, yielding, quickly reached down to retrieve the article. He brushed it off, folded it, and laid it neatly on the empty chair next to him.

Immediately, Karl's entire countenance changed. "Kurtis, mate, did they get you some dinner?"

"Yeah. I just ate. Thanks." There was a moment's hesitation, and then, "Hong Kong. Settle me in Hong Kong."

Karl raised an eyebrow. "She said to send you both to Mexico."

"What?" Kurtis didn't receive that piece of news particularly well. "I do not wanna go to Mexico. And she doesn't need resettling. She didn't do anything wrong – she can just get a high priced lawyer to smooth things over and go right back to her messed up little life." He tetchily pulled out a cigarette and his lighter and lit up, muttering a further comment. "Not so easy for me. I can see why she failed to mention her little agreement with you."

Karl threw down the form he'd been holding and sat back heavily. "Do let me know when you decide, eh? I'd like to know which colour passport I'm using."

"Lara does not need a passport," Kurtis assured him, pointing a finger. "Just help getting out of France, because if the police get her before I'm gone, I'm fucked. She'll talk. I, on the other hand, need a whole new identity. I am not going to jail."

"Am I getting her out of France to Mexico, or England?"

Kurtis, slamming his feet back on the floor and leaning forwards, getting decidedly agitated, pointed at nothing again. "I don't care. Wherever. Me? Hong Kong." He calmed himself and sat back again. "Near one of those hostess bars."

Obediently, Karl screwed up the paper in front of him and started on a clean sheet. "Hong Kong," he confirmed, his tone resigned, starting the preparations for a fake identity all over again. "Business investor or student visa?"

"You know why she wants Mexico, don't you?"

Giving up, Karl dropped his pen. "Do I care? That's the question."

Kurtis didn't even falter, perhaps not having heard. "Visions. She just told me. She's been having visions and now she's got it into her head that some Mayan god won't give her what she wants unless I'm around. A Mayan god. A Mayan god wants me. Are you hearing how crazy this is?"

"Having known you as long as I have, Demon Hunter, nothing seems crazy to me anymore as far as you're concerned."

Still, Kurtis' momentum was untouched. "Why can't she just leave me be? Why can't she just drop this whole thing? Why is she always there? Always—"

"You haven't done her yet then?" Karl interrupted dryly.

It took a moment for the comment to sink in and then Kurtis looked disgusted. "Jesus!"

"Oh! So you're not only Mr Picket Fence, you're Mr Celibate now."

"Far from." Kurtis defended with playground opposition. He shifted, offended. "She's a bitch."

"So? It's sex, not marriage."

"I like to like the girls I screw."

"Oh for crying out loud." Karl looked away for a moment, thoroughly fed up. "I'll send you to Hong Kong via Mexico. Give her what she wants, shut her up. Have her whilst you're there, maybe that'll shut you up, too."

Kurtis glared. "Am I annoying you, Karl?"

"Yes, in a word." He picked the pen up again and returned to the papers. The room was quiet except for the scratching of the nib and a radio talk show set so quietly that it was difficult to hear.

"I should go to Mexico, shouldn't I? It's the only way."

"It does seem," Karl replied, stopping work again and more amiable now that Kurtis had stopped being obtuse, "that if you really want to leave all this behind, you shouldn't give it an excuse to keep coming back to haunt you."

"It, or her?"

Karl quirked an eyebrow and Kurtis smirked. Laughing bitterly, he stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and drew spirals with the ash. "I was starting to be ok, you know?"

Karl nodded, and then, as a thought occurred to him, started snickering.

"What?"

"There's a Disneyland in Hong Kong."

They stared at each other for a moment, and then they began to laugh.

* * *

Irritated that the guard supervising her from the corner of the small staff lounge was not taking the hint to stop leering at her, Lara sighed and turned away in her armchair. It was more difficult to read that way, with the night-time lighting in the room being so sparse, but his continual appraisal was putting her off too much. Restless and finding that the lack of light was giving her eye strain, she let the book she was holding fall to her lap and instead took in the scenery through the large nearby windows. The converted warehouse they were in was on the outskirts of the city and on a hill, giving quite beautiful views with the Eiffel Tower off in the distance.

She heard someone enter through the door at the back leading into the kitchen. They approached quietly and sat down opposite her, resting a mug of soup on the glass table between them with a clink. The barest of glances told her it was Kurtis.

"I'll come. I'll help you. But on two conditions. First, you treat me properly. You withhold information, or get snarky, or get me into any sort of trouble I can't just walk away from, and I stop co-operating until you start to play nice again. Second, when all this is over, you never, ever, contact me again."

Lara's gaze fell to her knees as she considered his words and then she turned her head to look at him. "I'm sorry."

Nodding, Kurtis picked up his soup, and left.


	19. River

**Thank you to my reviewers, new and old! And here we go onto the home stretch...**

Soundtrack: Into The Depths of Self Discovery - Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill 4)

_River_

Even through the thick smoke that shrouded the treetops thousands of feet below, the red glow was visible in patches. The forest was burning, ravaged by fire across hundreds of miles, a silent but chilling sight so far below. Kurtis watched, awed, from the plane's window, and then turned to Lara beside him.

"CNN said it was arson."

"The earth has to slough its skin from time to time," Lara replied without looking up from her book. "It will burn, and it will renew."

"It's wanton destruction," Kurtis muttered, peering back out of the window again. "Wouldn't be so bad if this wasn't Mexico's dry season."

Lara took a deep breath and turned a page.

After a moment's more silence she said, "When we get there, I'll need to find a suitable guide. The fire's spread North from Chitchen Itza, engulfing the Cenote that should be the entrance to the dagger's temple. I'm hoping that we'll be able to approach from the South through other underground caves in the area – they're quite well networked apparently – and get in another way. The area's not properly mapped but it wouldn't surprise me if there are locals who know where they're going."

"Wouldn't that likely make them guardian descendents like the last guy we had who knew where he was going?"

"It would likely make them privy to certain traditions, yes."

Lara's nose was still in her book so Kurtis, wanting to bring up something along a slightly different track, reached out to push the pages down towards her lap. She turned to him questioningly and, having her full attention, he spoke.

"Why does this idol want me specifically?"

Lara shrugged. "I really don't know, but it's certainly been pushing me to involve you right from the start."

"I doubt it has anything to do with me being Lux Veritatis – as far as I know we had nothing to do with the Maya. And what was with that jaguar that attacked us in The Temple Of The Warriors? And that the second skull was about to be destroyed and then appeared happily sitting in the middle of the floor practically begging to be taken?"

"I really don't know," Lara maintained. "The jaguar…jaguars were sacred to the Mayans and they believed that Shamans could take on their form. It could well have been some sort of temple guardian."

"That just gave up and disappeared?"

Lara returned to her reading. "You rarely get answers to these types of things so why worry yourself about it? Just forget it."

She realised then that that didn't sound like her at all.

All self-examination was out of her mind by the time she slid into the seat opposite Kurtis at dinner three days later. She hadn't changed or showered and had obviously returned to the hotel only moments before walking into the restaurant. Damp errant hairs framed her flushed face and her shoulders had caught the sun either side of the thin straps of her tank top. Kurtis, in fresh clothes and a carefully mussed hair style that had gained him more than a few appreciative looks as he'd sat perusing the menu, now perused Lara. 'Dirty' and 'scruffy' had never really done it for him before but on her, it worked, and he briefly allowed himself a few dirty and scruffy thoughts involving after-dinner sex against the wall.

"How was your day of guide-hunting?" Lara asked, ruining his fantasy. She seemed pleased with herself, in a smug way, and was clearly about to announce that _her_ day of guide hunting had been very successful.

"You got somebody?"

"Yes." Lara stopped as a waiter approached, accepting a menu from him and ordering an iced tea. He left, and she continued. "Her name is Ria. She's been diving in the caves since she was old enough to swim, knows them well, and is happy to help us in return for some money for a new laptop."

"Cool. Where'd you find her?"

Lara accepted the iced tea that arrived and quickly ordered the first starter on the menu that she saw. "In a bar about forty five minutes' walk from here. Very much not in the tourist guide. I was asking around without much success when she walked in and approached me. Evidently news of our enquiries had travelled."

"So are we heading out tomorrow?" Kurtis asked, leaning back as his main course was delivered. He'd started dinner without her; they'd been rather going their separate ways as they'd both searched for guides.

"Yes. Six o clock in the morning."

Kurtis looked at his watch and raised an eyebrow. The evening suddenly seemed very short. "Fine," he said, tucking into a peppered steak.

* * *

As they stepped into the lobby the next morning, Lara immediately began scanning the area. Her gaze fell on the leather chairs arranged near the entrance to the bar, and a young Mexican girl in denim shorts and a faded purple shirt sat in one of them. A cloth back pack was at her feet and her shoulder length hair was pulled into two low pigtails. She couldn't have been more than seventeen years old.

"Ah," Lara uttered, pleased. She immediately made for the girl and Kurtis, barely believing his eyes, followed. This was their guide?

Spotting Lara approaching, the girl stood and smiled.

"Kurtis," Lara said, "this is Ria."

Kurtis looked her over once more. Definitely young. "Hello, Ria," he said, nodding slightly to himself as he decided that things really were going to be bad as he'd hoped they wouldn't be. Lara was cracked. A kid?

"Hello," she replied pleasantly, either oblivious or refusing to be made uncomfortable by his obvious impression of her. Her attention was drawn back to Lara as the woman began rifling in a bag. Pulling out a wad of notes she said, "Half now, half on completion, as we agreed."

"Sure," Ria said brightly, taking the money. She counted it, folded it, and pushed it into a resealable clear plastic bag stowed in her breast pocket.

Lara gestured to the doors. "We should get going."

Some time later, and after an almost silent journey, Lara found herself stifling a yawn as Kurtis parked up their car in the large visitor centre car park. Chitchen Itza was open for business once more now that the fires had moved North, leaving the forest around their point of origin nothing but charred desolation. For safety, though, there was a clear perimeter that was not to be crossed, and the Cenote, away from the main site, was out of bounds. Police milled around everywhere, their cars parked haphazardly, and tourists were kept to strict routes and areas.

That was all from the site and Northwards. Ria was intending to take them back South.

She, Lara and Kurtis got out, unloading their bags. They stood for a moment around the vehicle, hefting backpacks onto shoulders, putting on sunglasses, surveying the fast-gathering tourists.

"It's about a mile's hike," Ria said. "That way. There's another cenote that we can use to get into the cave system and from there it should only be a couple of hours."

"Well then," Kurtis sighed, locking the car with the remote controlled central locking, "the sooner we get started…"

He set off, leading the way across the car park and Lara closed her eyes momentarily in a mixture of annoyance and pain. He really didn't want to be there.

The forest came right up to the edge of the concrete and about two feet further back there was low wire fencing. Shielding themselves from view behind a block of toilets, they climbed the fence easily and pushed forwards through the thick foliage. It was exhausting for such a short hike, having to continually step over plants, duck under branches, push leaves out of the way, and none of them wasted energy talking. Whether or not the silence and tense atmosphere made Ria feel uncomfortable, Kurtis couldn't tell, but she led the way confidently and apparently unaffected, and within an hour, sweating, dirty and sleepy already from the heat and the work, they were at the edge of another cenote.

A small hole, approximately one metre in diameter, was in the middle of the forest floor. It had been formed by part of an underground cave's roof collapsing in, too eroded to hold itself up anymore – that, Lara knew, was what turned a cave into a cenote – and was surprisingly neatly edged. Much of the roof was still intact, forming the ground beneath their feet. Staring down into the hole, one found themselves looking into a large cave, shallow water covering a very rocky bottom.

"Are you brave?" Ria asked.

"What?" said Lara.

In reply, Ria smiled mischievously, threw her bag down into the water, and jumped in after it. Kurtis gasped, dropping to his knees and staring down in worry, but almost immediately after hitting the water, Ria surfaced, waving. "It's much deeper than it looks. Perfectly safe." Kurtis looked to Lara, his face a picture of disbelief, but her expression was knowing and tenacious. She was already firmly focused on her goal.

Gesturing with her foot for him to give her a little more room, she hopped in.

A splash a moment later signalled her arrival, and Kurtis looked in to find her swimming to join Ria out of the way of the landing zone. "Come on," she called bossily, "or are you scared?"

"Crazy bitch," Kurtis muttered to himself, tossing his bag ahead of him. Still kneeling, he dropped to one hip so that his legs were no longer underneath him and slid in without hesitation. Hell if he'd be caught treating it as some sort of game.

He was fully submersed for a second, the cold of the water a nasty, sharp, shock, immediately soaking right into his muscles, tensing and cramping them. He gasped as he surfaced, shaking his hair, flailing his limbs for a moment. Quickly, he regained control.

Lara was looking at him without amusement. "You get used to jumping into cold water," she assured him. Beside her, Ria turned and began to swim slowly across the cavern, and Lara followed suit.

Angered, Kurtis looked around for his bag and spotted it settled on the floor not far from him. He dove for it, finding that indeed the waters really were much deeper than they appeared, a testament to how amazingly clear they were.

Everything was cast in a deep terracotta, the shadows of ripples swimming repetitively across the rocks. The water was blue, unevenly surfaced stalagmites rising up and just breaking the surface. Above him, huge stalactites hung from the rounded ceiling, wet and dripping, and the hole through which they had entered, so small and high and draped with a light covering of thinly leaved plants around its edge, was a bright circle of sunshine. The rays shone down onto the crystal water in a shaft of mist-spotted light, appearing to shift and phase and illuminating the whole of the cave in a quiet but dynamic luminosity.

It was one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen.

Still staring in awe, Kurtis blindly struck out in pursuit of the girls, pulling his bag after him.

Up ahead, Ria took a breath and dived, and Lara promptly followed. Sighing to himself, Kurtis did the same.

They surfaced on the other side of a short tunnel into another, large cave. Ria had flicked on a powerful torch and was sweeping its beam across the walls, showcasing the area. The floor on the other side rose gently up out of the water to something akin to a rocky beach and their surroundings, not open to the sky, seemed greyer and lifeless.

"Is the rest of this journey going to be this dark?" Lara asked.

"Yes. There are only two more caves on the way that are open to the surface."

"Kurtis? Why don't you help us out?"

He knew immediately what Lara was driving at – use his magic to light the way as he had done underneath the Temple Of The Warriors. Similarly, Lara knew exactly what he meant when he shot her a look – give away his skills to Ria? Instead, he pulled his own torch from his waterproofed bag and flicked it on. Rebuffed, Lara drew out chemical flares.

"Once we get on to the shore there it's walking for about a half mile. Some of the tunnels and doorways are natural, some were made by my ancestors."

They began to swim gently to the land, Ria and Kurtis struggling slightly to keep moving whilst holding their torches above the water.

"So you're Mayan, Ria?" Kurtis asked.

"Yes."

"How come you know this place so well?"

"My parents have been bringing me here since I was little."

"For fun?"

"No," she replied shortly. "My community is supposed the guard the dagger you're looking for. They come down here once a month to strengthen the magic around the temple. Me and the other kids are being taught to do the same."

"Strengthen the magic?" Lara asked and then she realised something. She stopped, treading water. "It's not a temple so much as a prison, isn't it?"

Ria, also stopping for a moment, shrugged slightly. "I guess." She moved off again.

"So why in hell are you taking us right there?" Kurtis asked, following her, ire in his voice.

She reached the shore and climbed out, wringing out her hair and clothes. She looked angry. "My dad's got loads of health problems from swimming in the cold all the time for years on end. He's just had two fingers amputated because of it. All because of some stupid dagger. It's just a relic, everyone knows there's no such thing as magic or Buluc-Chabtan. It's dumb. Take the dagger, we'll be better off without it." She folded her arms and almost stamped her foot, looking away.

Lara and Kurtis exchanged looks and crawled onto the dry land beside her. "I thought you wanted a new laptop," Lara remarked, and she went on through the rough hewn doorway cut into the wall.

Kurtis stood, the girl next to him still sulking.

After a moment he said, "You need to go home."

Ria eyed him, sullen-faced.

"Trust me, Ria, it's not just a relic. There are more things—"

"In heaven and earth, yes, I know. My mum says the exact same thing."

"You can't give away your history like this."

Unwilling or unable to argue with an adult, Ria just went back to staring at the ground once more. The torch held limply in one hand shone somewhere behind her and it was up to Kurtis to keep them both illuminated.

"I'll give you the rest of the money," he sighed. "Just…point us in the right direction and go home."

"I can't," the teenager countered, shaking her head. "Without climbing equipment, the only way out is at the temple."

Dropping his head, Kurtis groaned.

"Ria." Lara's sharp voice brought their attention to the doorway. She was leaning in to the cave, a fading flare in her hand. "You do know that one of the two ways forwards is blocked, don't you? A rockfall – looks quite recent."

Jaw hanging open slightly, Ria's expression was one of harassed disbelief. She darted forwards into the next cavern and then gave a strangled cry. "That's the shortcut we built a few years ago! You couldn't go through there before because it needed draining but we installed some pumps and—Argh! Now we'll have to go the long way 'round."

"It must have been the recent earthquake. How long will the long way take?" Lara asked.

"A day or so. It's not like anyone usually needs to start all the way out here to get to the temple. The caves in this area are for other duties."

"What duties?"

"None of our business," Kurtis cut in. "We've got no choice and we weren't planning to be down here for more than a couple of hours so we'd better get moving. We have no food and no warmth."

Looking miserable, Ria muttered something under her breath, presumably curses, and stalked off along the long route.


	20. Tidal

**Sorry there hasn't been an update for a month or so - I've been pretty busy. Still, here we are, still plugging on. No more long hiatuses in sight yet. :-)**

Soundtrack:Promises - The Cranberries**  
**

_Tidal_

Ria was sleeping when Kurtis returned to their breakpoint after relieving himself. She was using her bag for a pillow and her hands were clutching one of Lara's chemical heat pads.

The fire they'd built from dried roots breaking through cracks above was dying already and the remains of the fish they'd caught and cooked over it were piled neatly next to it. He moved to the roots and ripped off some more, feeding the fire with them, and went in search of Lara.

She was in the next cave, sat in the light of a torch and reading something on a Blackberry. She glanced at him and then returned to the phone.

"I can get a signal in here," she explained.

"What time is it?" Kurtis asked, ignoring her statement.

"Six in the evening," Lara replied. "It feels much later, doesn't it?"

"Certainly does to Ria. I thought we were just stopping for dinner." He sat down.

"Let her get an hour or so," Lara said, eyes still fixed on the screen.

"You're taking advantage of her."

"Am I?" She sounded rather absent.

"Her people have a duty, she doesn't want to take it on, and so she's selling out her heritage. She's a kid, Lara."

Lara looked up, a wry and slightly nasty smile on her face. "At least she has an excuse."

"What does that mean?"

The phone took her attention again. "Nothing."

Kurtis' eyes narrowed and he abruptly stood. "Get over yourself, bitch," he snarled, stalking off.

"Stop calling me that!"

Before she'd finished shouting her demand, she'd launched a knife at him. The sound of her movement and the spinning blade chopping through the air made him instinctively lurch to the side and the weapon, aimed at his shoulder, travelled on past him.

It hadn't yet managed to hit the wall when another, unseen, force took it and sent it charging straight back at her, faster this time. The surprise and the lack of time left her unable to dodge successfully and as she jumped out of the way, the blade sliced through her upper arm. She clutched at it, looking shocked, and then drew her bloodied hand away to check the severity. It was a flesh wound, but deep, and stung enough.

Her face thunderous, she snatched up her weapon from where it had fallen and began to storm back to the camp for her bandages. "We have a job to do," she whispered fiercely as she passed him, "and you're not worth my time."

With a cry, he launched himself at her, tackling her to the ground, attacking her with his knees and fists in a vicious fury. She squirmed and grasped, trying to defend herself, fighting back by blindly reaching back towards his face and clawing hard. With strangled protestations, he concentrated on subduing her as she managed to turn over and continue clasping at his face, eyes, neck, anywhere where scratches and gouges would matter.

She drew blood, as did he with the help of the sharp rocks beneath her, but neither could really gain the upper hand and she had no idea who it was who turned the tide - if it could even be put down to just one of them - and the fight became sex.

Angry, hateful, desperate sex, with only her shorts and pants removed, somehow, and his flies opened, and neither of them giving a damn about the other. He tried to hold her down, she scratched at his back, and when they were done, they simply looked at each other for a moment in wary calculation and then got up, tidied themselves, collected their things, and marched back to the camp.

Ria was sat with her knees drawn to her chest, looking scared. She'd certainly heard them, in the echoing caverns, though she may possibly have not realised what had really gone on. Lara stopped, and looked at her.

"It's ok," she said, and then stooped to quickly knot a bandage around her arm and pack up her bag.

Ria regarded them both, her eyes glistening in the firelight, and then silently took Lara's lead.

They remained silent as they continued onwards, the only sounds the noise of their steps on the uneven and often crumbling ground and the quiet rippling of water as they swam through lakes and flooded tunnels.

By the time night was setting in above, they came, through a second underwater entrance, into the cavern that had previously thwarted Lara. It had been a long, cold, dive to get there, using breathing equipment stored in the caves elsewhere. Without it, it would have meant certain drowning. That way had not been open to the Maya originally.

"There it is," Ria nodded, shining her torch to illuminate a small area of land, and Lara, also nodding in confirmation, struck out towards the temple door. As soon as she was on land and had set down a new flare, she began to unpack the skulls and place them on the correct pedestals, barely heeding the cold and the water dripping into her eyes from her hair. Kurtis hovered nearby.

Their torches cut swathes of yellow light through their immediate area, leaving the rest of the cavern in darkness, and creating an almost cosy atmosphere.

"You can go, if you want," Lara said.

Ria, watching, thought, and then shook her head.

"So she does have some interest after all," Kurtis said to her, pleased. Ria gave him a faint, slightly sick-looking, smile, and Kurtis eyed her interestedly. He moved to her and spoke low so that Lara wouldn't hear. "Second thoughts?"

"I don't want to be tied to this. I want to move, I want to travel, I want to go to university." She looked back at him almost imploringly, and his heart twisted with the sympathy of familiarity. How he knew what it was to want to escape your heritage.

"Kurtis," Lara called, insensitive to it all. "You press on this skull here, and I press on this one. Come on." Shooting one last quick look at their guide, Kurtis went to the doorway.

The doorway itself, he noted, wasn't actually visible. The rock face, in front of which was the setting for the artefacts, was identical to the rest of the wall – white, rough, hard. No doubt something would happen when they turned the metaphorical key but there was no clue as to what. He wondered if Ria knew.

Crouching by the blue skull, Kurtis kept his eyes on Lara, and when the cue came, he pushed it down slowly.

The platforms upon which the skulls rested sank, stone grinding. They reached their lowest points and stayed there, and from the purple skull left untouched on the third, centre, platform, a bright ray of light suddenly shot forth, focusing on the plain wall in front of them. Ria gasped.

A high pitched tone took up, loud but not enough to be painful, and, as if it was affecting their vision, everything became brighter and brighter until they were blind, the only thing they could see a blinding, pure white. The volume of the tone grew and then, just when things were getting disorienting, cut off abruptly. Simultaneously, the brightness quickly faded, and, blinking, they found their sight returned to them and a doorway in the wall.

Kurtis and Lara slowly stood, a delighted smile growing across Lara's face and Kurtis' showing silent awe. Ria looked dumbfounded.

She simply stood, arms to her sides, mouth open, eyes wide, staring at the crystal door.

It certainly did appear to be crystal – in a roughly rectangular shape directly in front of the skulls, the wall had been altered in some way. It was translucent now, but still showing the same thickness and surface contours of the solid wall that it had replaced. It was thick, a good half-metre just like the wall it sat in, and shone in pinks, greens and oranges in their torchlight.

"I…" was all Ria could manage.

"Surprised?" Kurtis grinned. The thing that surprised him was that Lara grinned at her, too.

The girl took a few steps forwards, reaching out to the door still metres away and then stopping abruptly. "I…" she started again.

"Go through," Lara prompted. Ria looked at her, disbelieving and a little apprehensive, and then looked back to the door. "Go on," Lara pushed.

She slowly walked forwards and hesitantly reached out to touch it with her fingertips. Immediately, she drew them back, as if expecting it to hurt her in some way. Finding it didn't, she touched it again, for a longer moment, feeling it was cold and somehow not quite solid. In fact, it felt like a viscous liquid. She pressed her fingers forwards and gasped as her hand sank easily into the doorway.

Looking back to seek reassurance, or perhaps permission, from Lara and Kurtis, Ria steadied herself and stepped boldly forwards into the doorway.

Two steps took her right through.

On the other side, she spun to stare back at the wall she had just traversed, mouth open again. Still grinning, Lara confidently followed her through and, with a degree of the same awe as their guide, Kurtis followed.

They were in another massive cavern, filled with an ambient light. The waterfalls, rock faces and massive pool far below them had only been hinted at through the unclear doorway, but now they could see every stunning detail.

They had entered onto a ledge that ran right around the edge of a tall, circular cave, some thirty metres above the ground level. As it curved around ahead of them in a beige rock similar to the walls from which it jutted, it sloped downwards, leading to a gap that led into what once had been hewn stairs. They had crumbled and collapsed with age, however, and now only sections remained, hanging tenuously onto the walls.

They too curved around the walls, descending to ground-level, where another rocky ledge, this one complete, traced out the circumference. It circled a pool, the water a deep blue, the surface rolling quite harshly with waves, obviously driven by some sort of tidal force somewhere.

Wall murals, the colours still fresh and preserved, depicted grisly deaths and mutilations by blades and the drowning sacrifices of dozens of 'honoured' Mayans, and throughout the area, lush green trailing creepers hung from cracks and indentations.

Opposite them, and at the bottom, a large, rough doorway in the wall led through to another room out of sight. Ria pointed at it. "Down there," she guessed.

Lara hummed in agreement and wordlessly set off 'round to the left, walking a little unsteadily on the sloping and loose-stoned ledge.

Lara did wonder for a moment if Ria would be able to traverse the broken stairs, requiring, as it did, jumps and grabs and no small amount of courage and trust that it wouldn't collapse beneath them. She did mostly fine, however, having spent most of her short life caving, diving and rock climbing through her ancestors' ceremonial grounds. There was a healthy amount of fear in her hesitations and on her face, but she pushed on.

On the second to last section of stairs, they grouped and surveyed the gap between them and the steps that would lead them almost to the ground. From there, it was just a short hop down, but right in front of them, the gap was dangerously wide, much more of a problem than the previous leg of the journey that had needed only a reasonable amount of athleticism.

Lara gazed calculatingly at the area, taking in the horizontal distance between her and her target, and the way the drop down to it could aid her in getting that little bit further. "I can make it," she said at last, confidently.

"You sure?" Kurtis asked.

She nodded. "Positive." She backed up, leaving them to automatically stand clear, and then bounded down the rest of the steps and launched herself into mid-air. Legs bent up beneath her, she flew forwards, rising, and then dropping, riding a graceful parabola. Naturally, she pushed her legs behind her, arched her back, reached upwards as far as she could, and just managed to grab onto the edge of the stairs with grasping hands and a grunt of exertion.

Her body came to bang painfully against the rock and she hung there for a moment, winded, before searching for purchase with a foot and half-pulling, half-pushing herself up. She scrambled over the edge and got to her feet with an accomplished sigh and a grazed knee.

"Ria?" Kurtis asked.

The girl shook her head adamantly. "Not a chance."

Kurtis didn't say anything more. Instead, he simply mimicked Lara's run-up and leap. He was far less graceful and certainly less aerodynamic, and under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have made it. But Kurtis was not normal. To Ria's amazement, an invisible force gave him an extra little push upwards and forwards just as he began to fall to earth far short of his destination, and, with a precision and balance that spoke of his strength, landed solidly, almost heavily, past Lara.

He turned. "I can do the same for you. Come on, just jump as far as you can. I've got you."

Unsurprisingly, the guide looked disbelieving and completely hostile to the idea. "No way!"

"Really, Ria, it's ok, he's done the same for me before," Lara said. "Come on." Ria shook her head forcefully. "Fine, then. You can wait here."

"Hey. No…"

"Come on, Ria," Kurtis pressed, sounding slightly harassed. "I will not let you fall. What, you can walk through a wall but you can't accept that someone has telekinesis?"

She looked a little put out at that, but looked around the large and empty cave. Deciding that being left alone was less preferable to putting her faith in an apparently capable and trustworthy adventurer, she took a deep breath, and backed up a few steps.

Weaker, shorter, un-trained, she never would have even got half way, and as she began to plummet, her shriek echoed loudly around the space. True to his word, through, Kurtis picked her up and flung her forwards towards them. She screamed again as she felt herself being tossed forcefully, losing her control over the flight, legs and arms flailing uselessly.

Both Lara and Kurtis reached to catch her as she hurtled towards them and, noisily, all three fell in a heap, Kurtis cracking his back for a short, painful moment on the edge of one of the steps.

Embarrassed, offering a string of apologies, Ria hurriedly got to her feet.

"It's all right," Lara assured her, a little tartly. "No harm done."

"My fault," Kurtis groaned as he slowly stood. "Think I pushed you a little hard for your weight, there."

Lara jumped back in before it could continue. "No matter. Everyone's ok. Let's go."

Still looking humiliated, Ria silently followed behind as Lara and Kurtis made for the door.


	21. The Fall

**Well, it's been another long wait. I'm sorry for that - just after I last updated, I had to prepare for my annual holiday (shopping, packing, booking, etc), then I went on said holiday, and then for the last few weeks I've been incredibly busy trying to meet all my end-of-year deadlines at work. But, work is now done until January, all my objectives were met, and I look forward to a nice relaxing (and well deserved if I do say so myself) break. In which I hope to finish this story off.**

Soundtrack: Torukia - Yoko Kanno

_The Fall_

Lara stopped a little way before the entrance to the room at the back of the cavern and surveyed the logosyllabics written above the door. "Light carries," she translated slowly, "dark wields."

"What do you think it means?" Kurtis asked, coming to stand beside her. She shrugged. "I'm sure it will become clear after the fact."

"You mean, we'll understand the warning once it's too late."

"Possibly." She walked through the door.

A square room about the size of an average lounge, the area's walls and ceiling were smooth, beige rock, chiselled flat and every inch covered in intricate engraved scenes of suffering and sacrifice, the carnage picked out in richly coloured paints daubed into the channels. An empty pedestal sat centred towards the back of the room, of the same polished white stone that had been used to create the slabs covering the even floor, and at regularly spaced intervals around the tops of the walls, small rectangular open shafts allowed air to circulate.

At least, Lara hoped that's what they were for, especially given that she recognised the room as being the rapidly flooding scene of her drowning in her visions. Kurtis, having the same wary idea, eyed them. "I don't like the look of those."

"So where's the dagger?" Ria asked indignantly, standing at the empty pedestal.

"I'm sure your people's work hasn't been wasted," Lara assured her. "It's unlikely robbers managed to get in here. It'll be here somewhere."

They wandered the space, staring around, looking for clues.

To one side was a second room, almost no more than a deep alcove. It was empty, but Ria went to take a look inside anyway, neither Kurtis nor Lara taking much notice.

A short high pitched tone, painful to the ears, began to sound once more, and for a short moment, Ria's gaze darted around the small chamber, looking for the source.

A deep, hollow bang sounded behind her, the area immediately becoming much darker, like a late dusk, and she spun to find the entrance now a solid, seamless wall. Flowing in silently from small holes all around the base of the room, water began to pool.

The sounds had been audible outside the room, too, and it took only a second for Lara and Kurtis to not only notice the new wall, but also their guide's absence.

"Ria?" Lara called anxiously, quickly crossing to the closed alcove. "Ria?"

She could hear no reply of any kind, but inside, Ria was slamming her palms against the rock and calling at the top of her voice. "Hey! Hey! It's flooding in here! Help me! Help!"

Kurtis shook his head. "She's gotta be in there."

"Did you see what it was? Did it lead anywhere, was there anything in there?"

Again, he shook his head, this time in answer to Lara's question. "No. Can't say I really looked."

"All right. Look for some way to open it." She immediately began to examine the murals for clues, run her hands over the walls in search of hidden switches. Kurtis, hesitantly testing his powers and finding them unsuppressed, attacked the wall.

"Help me!" Ria was still yelling, almost demanding. "Help!" Frantically, she looked down to the water swirling around her knees, rising impossibly fast. It was pouring in from vents that had opened up towards the ceiling now, decorated with rounded carvings in some sort of twisted reverence, the water falling noisily in miniature torrents.

"Please?"

She was lifted from her feet, floating, forced to tread water to remain upright, the freezing cold up around her chest. "Lara!" She spluttered as the rolling surface gave her a mouthful of crystal water. "Kurtis!"

Gasping through the frequent ingestion and her growing fear, she swam clumsily, splashing, submerging, clawing at the walls, all in the rapidly diminishing space between the relentless waves and the ceiling. "Help! Help me!"

Slowing quickly to a trickle before stopping altogether, the waterfalls ceased.

Eyes darting left and right in confusion and relief, Ria panicked for a moment and then regained control of herself, steadying herself with a hand on the wall, calming her movements along with the settling of the pool. Coughing a little, droplets on her lips and eyelashes, she shivered and held back tears.

And then, she became aware of being watched, and slowly, dreading what she might see, she pushed herself around to face the other way.

A frightening and hideous visage floated there with her, the skin a dark blue, the lips protruding and twisted in a menacing smile, the eyes small and squinting, the nose decorated with an ugly large ring.

Ria screamed long and loud.

In the main room, a faint growl, almost a purr, interrupted Lara and Kurtis, and they both looked up sharply.

Gasping quietly, reflexively drawing her pistols, Lara firmed up her stance as Kurtis drew his chirugai.

The jaguar kept its gaze firmly on the two as it padded silently around to crouch threateningly in front of them. Under the cover of the weapons, its eyes seemed almost daring.

It spoke, the voice disembodied and yet somehow, strangely, obviously connected to the unmoving animal.

"You seek the dagger."

"What are you?" Lara demanded, unphased. "And where's Ria?"

The jaguar continued to regard them, the stand off remaining. "I am the Shamen who watches this prison."

"Ria?" Kurtis pressed, finding his voice.

"She has given her life in sacrifice. In return I offer you your ward." The creature's eyes flicked to the pedestal and, risking a peek himself, Kurtis saw what the jaguar meant – the dagger now lay visible and unprotected. "She's dead?"

"She didn't give anything," Lara accused. "You've murdered her."

"Our ways are rather different to yours."

"Don't give me that. There's no way that girl would have subscribed to the idea of sacrificing herself to gods. It's outdated."

"And yet you stand here debating with me."

"Lara," Kurtis cut in, "if this is anything like the last one, bullets aren't going to help much."

The jaguar purred softly in its throat. "You've passed our tests, we have taken our payment, take the dagger and leave. But know this, no matter how noble your cause, darkness lives in you all and Buluc-Chabtan will seek to manipulate that. If you let him, he will control you, and he will be free."

"Manipulate?" Lara repeated, but before she could ask anything further, the jaguar turned to trot towards the doorway, then broke into a run, leapt, and vanished in mid-air as if diving into an invisible hole, bolts of crackling blue lightning streaming over its body in its last moment.

Kurtis let his weapon fall to his side and he stared at the spot it had disappeared.

Lara swallowed. "I don't like it here – we should leave." She turned, her face veiled with composure, and picked up the dagger, examining it.

"That's it?" Kurtis asked, lunging towards and forcing himself into her line of sight. "Ria!"

"Is dead," Lara finished. "I don't like it any more than you do, but it can't be helped. I don't see any reason why that Shamen would have lied. Taking her as a sacrifice makes sense."

"And you're not even going to try and find her?"

"Find her? We know where she is, she's behind that wall! How do you propose we get her out? And what on earth do we do with the body? Give her back to her family and just expect them to let us walk away? We'd be incriminated for sure." With that last point she almost pouted, and went back to staring at the ornate burnished gold dagger in her hands, its blade a blacker metal, the handle almost like globules in a design more ceremonial than practical.

"Well I don't know about you, but we soldiers don't like leaving people behind."

"And I say again, just how do you want to get at her, and what do you want to do with her?"

They stared at each other for a moment, neither backing down. Lara called it off. "We leave," she ordered. She spun and began to march towards the doorway but paused as a light trembling took up in the floor beneath her feet. Looking down, her face written with a cross between confusion and knowing apprehension, she moved her gaze up to Kurtis and said, "Quickly."

The tiles beneath her front foot collapsed, leaving her jumping back with a gasp, and, as if they had set off a chain reaction like dominoes, further tiles dropped away one after the other, opening a wide channel all the way to the entrance. The rumbling got louder, the shaking got violent, and, faster than the first channel, a further two were formed cutting across from left to right, leaving the floor intact in just two corners and the rectangle across the back of the room upon which Lara, Kurtis and the pedestal stood.

They could see cold, churning water below, the remnants of the flooring sunk out of sight. Leaving the pedestal leaning for a moment, sunk at one corner before disappearing into the water completely with a splash, the first gap extended itself backwards, separating Lara and Kurtis. Water began to gush in from the vents underneath the ceiling, splashing across what little floor remained.

They were about to regain their senses and run when a great torrent of water crashed in from the right, knocking Kurtis off his feet in its rush and sending Lara jumping backwards in surprise.

The wall that had trapped Ria had disappeared and she lay there now, swept out, coughing and spluttering, drenched to the skin, her bag washed down into the waves below.

"Ria!" Kurtis cried, scrambling towards her, but she backed up quickly with something akin to fear, shoving him away, her eyes wide.

"You were going to leave me!"

"Ria, are you all right? We have to get out of here, now!" Lara called over the din.

"You were going to leave me! He showed me! You didn't care! At all! I saw it all, I heard everything!" She was practically hysterical, oblivious to the destruction around her.

"Ria," Kurtis shouted again, ordering her to listen to him this time, grabbing her arm roughly and refusing to be shaken off. "Ria, look around you, we've got to escape."

She wasn't listening, however, still caught up in her accusations. "He doesn't need to manipulate you," she screamed at Lara, raging. "You're already evil! I was drowning! Screaming! You ignored me in favour of that – that dagger!"

Confusion was written across Kurtis' face but Lara's was slowly clearing as everything fell into place.

"Oh," she said. "Kurtis…"

The floor beneath her feet dropped, and she fell.


	22. Cleanse

**Oh. My. I've finished. I'VE FINISHED. After FOUR YEARS I've finally managed to finish this story! I'm pretty happy with it. I think it's a little weak in places, but overall, I don't think it's too shabby an effort. Final chapter and epilogue, here we come...**

Soundtrack: Torukia – Yoko Kanno

_Cleanse_

The roaring of the water was deep in her ears, the cold reaching right inside her, the currents and waves imprisoning her under the surface with barely a breath of air to survive on, but she'd be damned if she was going to drown, or let go of that dagger.

Lara struggled, fighting, kicking and stroking out with every ounce of strength she had, until Kurtis grabbed hold of a wrist and hauled her upwards.

Something anchored her, preventing him from doing more than getting her head above water.

"I'm caught!" she gasped, tugging over and over. "My ankle!"

A heavy rumble like thunder sounded from Ria's direction, punctuated by a scream, and they looked over to find the ruined floor she'd been kneeling on partially collapsed, still attached along one wall as if hinged, now sloping steeply down with its end in the water. The girl was clinging on to the cracked and buckling slabs, on precarious footholds, staring fearfully down into the waves that broke not far below her.

"Hold on!" Lara called, but Ria barely heard her, slipping, regaining her footing, yelping and calling for help.

"Give me the dagger," Kurtis demanded, lying on what was left of the floor next to her, still grasping her right wrist, her hand clutching at his arm.

Lara looked back to him, finding his face stern and unreadable, unreacting to the spray continually splashing him. For a moment, she was fearful, bringing the dagger in her hand down behind her back, the movement concealed under the churning water. Her vision had warned her that he only wanted the dagger. Without him, she'd drown. If she gave it up…

Daring the vision to be true, her eyes narrowing, she slowly raised the dagger and held it up to him.

Kurtis looked at it for a short moment and then snatched it, releasing her, yanking his hand from her tenuous grip and scrambling away. She fell back, going under again with an instinctive quick last lungful of oxygen, flailing with numbing limbs and desperately trying to break free from the weed – she could see that was what it was now she was submerged again – as her mind preoccupied itself with thoughts of betrayal, anger, pain and fear.

Dropping forwards into the water beside her, Kurtis dived downwards, grabbed her leg firmly. Their eyes locked on to each other and he silently ordered her to calm herself and stop kicking.

She did, and he pulled the weeds against the dagger's blade, sawing through them, releasing her. She pushed for the surface and air, and he came up beside her a second later, taking her around the waist, shoving her upwards and then psychically pushing her further to allow her to be able to grab, with freezing fingers, the ledge that was too high to reach alone. She kicked against the water to raise herself further and hauled herself up, crawling onto the stone breathless and shivering but foregoing recovery to reach down and pull Kurtis out behind her, the dagger shoved into his waistband.

"Ria," she managed to stutter, getting to her feet. She shook herself off, fisted her hands a couple of times to try and regain some feeling, and then jumped across to the hanging slope that their guide was still clinging to. Bracing herself next to the girl, she put one arm around Ria's waist to hold her on and waited as Kurtis joined them.

"Get over there," he shouted over the noise and the girl's whimpering, pointing to the still intact flooring by the doorway. "I'll send her over and you can catch her in case she doesn't make it. Then just go; I'll get myself out."

Able to take orders when they made sense, Lara obediently passed protection of Ria over to her partner and, watching her footing carefully as she balanced on the edge of a buckling stone, slipped one foot down into the water where she took foothold on another piece of the ruin. It moved her closer to her goal and from there she could push forwards with the foot still above water and, jumping as best as she could given her partial submergence, flop towards the intact ledge. Her upper body made it, and she dragged herself the rest of the way with bruised ribs and gritted teeth.

"Ok?" Kurtis called, and she nodded, swallowing.

He spoke instructions to Ria, inaudible to Lara, and Ria nodded reluctantly. Timidly, she turned a little, putting most of her weight on Kurtis, and then he gave her one final word and pushed. She hopped a little way and then was caught by his telekinesis, jolting her forwards, her body tensed as if she could propel herself. It was hard for him to move people without much momentum behind them and his push was only the barest of assistance. She landed in much the same place Lara had, plunging down into the water but with her arms reaching out and Lara caught them, stopping her from going completely under, and pulling her to safety.

"Come on, Ria," Lara encouraged, glancing at Kurtis. She saw him carefully manoeuvring himself into a position to be able to jump across, the spray of the hungry waves surrounding him.

The two women scuttled forwards, crouching under the noise and destruction, noting the buckling of the door's lintel. It seemed safer outside, the temple itself apparently the only area being razed to the ground now that its prisoner had been passed on. The central pool was also churning as in a storm, but the room seemed to be sound.

"Get climbing," Lara ordered, giving Ria a shove towards the broken stairs. "Go."

She turned back to see Kurtis just heaving himself onto the ledge and she returned to crouch in the doorway and offer him her hand.

Breathing heavily, he got to his knees and made for her but a loud crack made him pause. A slab at the wall lost a chunk of its corner as it gave and raised up.

Lara and Kurtis both stared at it at the same time and then looked to each other. "Don't just stand there!" Lara cried, "Move!"

He did, one foot coming forwards as he began to run, but, in one short moment, the ledge hinged and dropped as had happened under Ria, and he fell forwards, landed flat on his front, and began to slide.

Lara crouched in the doorway, bouncing restlessly. "Hold on!" she called uselessly, biting her lip, looking around for some way to help him but unable to reach.

The platform had not begun to crumble as Ria's had and there was nothing to take hold of, nothing to stand against. Kurtis was slowly sliding down into the water.

As his feet broke the surface, necessity gave him a flash of inspiration and he yanked the dagger from his side and slammed the blade into the cemented crack between two tiles above his head. It bit in and held, though telltale movements suggested that it wouldn't take his weight for long. With his other hand he clawed feebly at the spaces between slabs and the toes of his boots scrabbled uselessly just under the level of the water. He snarled with effort and frustration.

"Pull yourself up, take my hand!" Lara flattened herself against the ground and reached out as far as she could, straining.

With a groan and a thunderous splash, the rest of the flooring over in the opposite corner, whose partial collapse had first sent Lara under the waves, now gave up and crumbled completely, blocks of stone dropping away in one marked instant of destruction.

"I'm gonna drown," Kurtis muttered, but he clutched at the dagger's handle with both hands and forced his arms to bend, pulling his weight up. Grimacing, he shot out a hand towards Lara but their outstretched fingertips were still centimetres apart.

"I'm trying," Lara groaned, reaching further but knowing that if she moved too far, Kurtis' weight would only bring her over the edge and down to death with him. "I'm trying."

Little gasps of effort escaped them both as they both strained forwards, but then the cement around the dagger began to give. It dropped, angling downwards, moving Kurtis a little bit further out of reach, and threatened to slide out completely.

"It's gonna go," Kurtis warned. "Lara…don't you dare leave me again." His voice held a note of worry and warning as if he was ordering her to do something to save him. As if she wasn't trying, a little piece of her snarked.

Her eyes darted between his face and the dagger. If she didn't do something, they were both going to fall.

They fell.

The dagger lost its purchase and slid out in one jerked, quick moment, the sudden movement causing Kurtis to lose his grip. He slid, the dagger tumbled, Lara had only a split second to dive for one of them.

She'd come all this way…

They both grunted as she caught his rapidly retreating hand. The dagger splashed into the waters and disappeared.

His weight began to pull her in – she'd overbalanced herself, as she knew she would if she reached any further. "Kurtis!" she cried, trying to brace herself against the slope with one hand. His only answer was a look of horror.

"Hold on!"

It was Ria's voice, and then next thing Lara knew, arms were wrapping securely around her thighs and the weight of an extra body was stopping her from slipping further. Lara breathed a loud sigh of relief but Kurtis only continued to struggle as if nothing had changed for him.

"Pull me!" she ordered, and Ria did as she was told, kneeling securely between Lara's legs and heaving backwards so that Lara was getting pulled back to a kneeling position, too, helping her own way with one leg braced against the ground and one hand pushing back against the collapsed flooring, and Kurtis getting as much of a foothold as he could.

With one final pull, Lara was brought onto her haunches and Kurtis was jerked upwards to lie partially in the doorway, safe. He didn't move, exhausted and relieved, panting and muttering a thank you to whichever deity it was he believed in. Less exerted but equally thankful, Lara sat by with her eyes closed and face turned upwards, breathing heavily, and Ria clutched at her side.

A moment passed and then, still not quite recovered but getting to her feet regardless, Lara said, "We have to go."

She left the others to get themselves up and walked tiredly to the edge of the pool to stare up towards the roof of the cavern, turning to survey the broken steps they'd come down spiralling around the walls. "There's a way out from the cave system, right?"

"Yes," Ria panted, coming to stand beside her. "As long as there's not been another rock fall." Lara nodded absent-mindedly and then strode towards the lowest steps.

Another rumble took up in a deafening harmony against the backdrop of cracking, banging and crashing from the gradually falling temple with the percussion of breaking waves and Lara stopped, crouching slightly as she instinctively steadied herself. She looked over to find Ria also frozen in place, looking back apprehensively, and Kurtis viewing his surroundings with a wary suspicion.

"Don't tell me…" he said.

A sudden crescendo accompanied a huge intensification in the quaking around them, seemingly visibly shaking the very walls, as the temple entered its final death throes, taking the cavern with it.

Through the doorway, a short moment of complete collapse was visible before the ground beneath their feet cracked, split, buckled and disintegrated, sending them dropping down into the violently stirring waters below, but the water did not claim them.

It was falling too, and they were swept along, choicelessly riding the waves, speeding through some sort of underground river, drowning, screaming, getting tossed and turned and beaten against rock and mud.

Fearing where they would be taken, Lara forced herself into a position where she could what was coming and was overtaken by a sense of awe and terror as her gaze hit upon lit night sky through a gaping hole in a wall of rock. Stone, eroded 'round the edges, gave way to the blocky outline of bricks just further out and the calculating survivalist in Lara realised, through the danger and the speed and the fear, that a natural opening had been dammed up, the quaking had broken the dam, and the rapidly escaping water, so destructive when it wanted to be, had forced out a large hole that they were about to be swept through.

Only sky was visible, which meant they were high and on the slopes of what was possibly a mountain, and they hadn't been anywhere near a mountain when they'd started, and just where had they been taken and how would they survive this?

Chased by chunks of masonry and pieces of earth, they were shot through the opening and sent tumbling down steep slopes of grass and plants and bushes, the edge of the forest not far below them and burning weakly in a forest fire partially extinguished by the rushing, spreading flood.

Instinctively, they grabbed at anything they could, most greenery being wrenched from the ground in their hands and doing nothing to stop their descent, but as they moved into hardier foliage they caught on, and held, and scrambled to get their feet beneath them again in the soaked ground and under the onslaught of the remainder of the water.

"Move!" Lara bellowed, grabbing first Kurtis, who was closest, and then yanking him behind her to snatch up Ria. Above them, escaped ruins bounced down the hillside towards them, great blocks of stone and boulders of broken cave.

They dived to the side, Lara practically pulling the other two, and landed just out of the path of danger. Rumbling, thundering, the debris swept past, coming to a halt in a booming collision and a cloud of dust in the pile at the bottom of the slope.

She watched the quieting heap for a moment and then, her eyes rolling back into her head, Lara flopped onto her back with a great sigh of relief and exhaustion. Beside her, Ria just stared at nothing as her chest heaved, almost in shock, and Kurtis' eyes continually moved between the gouged and scrubbed slope, the failed ancient Mayan dam, and the rocks below, his face a picture of absolute wonder that they had survived.

The forest steamed, and flames died.

* * *

The city air was still choked with smoke but the fire, burning so brightly off in the distance when Lara had looked out of that window just two days previously, was no longer visible.

It had almost been fully extinguished, the news had said, with the collapse of a dam that had flooded a mountainous cave system releasing hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, bringing things back under control enough for the fire-fighters to start to make some progress.

She was sat in the third floor hotel bar on a late afternoon, her bags at her feet.

Kurtis approached, a drink in his hand, and took the seat next to her. They turned towards each other, smiling.

"I just got off the phone with Ria – the hospital are keeping her in overnight because of the concussion, but her ribs are only bruised, not broken. Her ankle, however, is."

"Well, she fared a little better than you, then," Lara smiled, regarding Kurtis' plastered arm.

"Can't believe you only got a broken finger," he grouched.

"This body's been bashed and broken too many times to be anything other than tough scar tissue, I'm afraid."

There was silence for a moment, and then she turned back to the window and spoke again. "That dagger is out there."

"And you need to go and lock it up somewhere safe? There is a whole bunch of people whose job it is to guard that thing – let Ria's community deal with it."

Lara quirked a smile. "I used to tell myself I was some sort of protector, fighting to save the world from ancient evils. But it gave me a sense of entitlement and embitterment that anyone I connected with usually ended up dead or a traitor, and certainly, my motivations for chasing Buluc-Chabtan were purely selfish. Perhaps I never was a soldier, just a murderer. Ria put me to shame by disobeying me and staying behind, ultimately saving us both, even after she thought we'd abandoned her."

Kurtis let out a breath. "There's a fine line between being a soldier and a murderer, Lara, and you're on the right side of it. Believe me, I know, I've crossed it more than a few times."

Toying with the glass balanced on the arm of her easy chair, Lara smiled again. "What _was_ our problem, Kurtis?"

He laughed. "Petty."

Lara made a sound of agreement as her smile grew wider. The sky outside darkened and then a smattering of rain took up against the window pane, quickly building to a heavy downpour. It was the dry season, but perhaps the combination of fire and water across the hundreds of miles had soaked the sky.

"Just what was Buluc-Chabtan's game, anyway?" Kurtis wondered.

Lara looked up at him from underneath her lashes. "Light carries, darkness wields – that's what the temple writings said. I think he wanted one of us to give in to our paranoia and kill the other with the dagger – the Shamen did refer to it as a ward and said we'd passed tests, so perhaps either you can carry the dagger, or the dagger can carry you."

"And then the Death God has a lackey."

"Precisely."

"So where did the visions end and Buluc-Chabtan begin?"

Lara shrugged. "Who knows?"

"You know what I did work out?" Kurtis grinned, looking proud. Lara shook her head questioningly, playing along, and he continued. "Why that pink skull just gave itself up."

"Oh, please!" Lara laughed, tossing her gaze skyward. "That's obvious! At least, it is now."

Kurtis harrumphed, disappointed. "Well, you may be the expert on curses and tombs, but I'm the expert on operating outside of the law, and as that expert, I'm saying we need to get out of this country, right now. Always run from anything that catches people's attention, especially when you've had something to do with it."

Lara nodded, agreeing. "You're right. So, you're going to Hong Kong?"

"Hong Kong. You – you'll be fine heading back home. You've not really done anything to upset the British government and once you're back on your own soil, you're relatively protected from everybody else. I'm the one who has too much trying to catch up with him."

Lara downed the rest of her drink and stood, gathering her bags and shouldering one of Kurtis', since his arm was broken. She began to lead the way, but Kurtis reached out and caught her arm gently, turning her to face him.

Stepping in closer, he kissed first her cheek, then her jaw, and then the crook of her neck. She stilled, waiting to see what he was going to do. He stared at the floor over her shoulder, wanting some sort of reaction to gauge.

Lara licked her lips and blinked. "When you said I should never, ever contact you again…"

"I didn't mean it," was the immediate answer.

She leaned back to bring her face around to his. "So this is my salvation then?" she said softly. "Someone who validates my violence."

"Well look at me," he replied. "I get someone who encourages me to follow one of the coldest professions out there."

She laughed. "Neither of us could ever come to anything good no matter who we were teamed up with," she said, and then she kissed him.

They left the hotel, stepping confidently out into the rain without a spot of protection against it, and went on their way.


	23. Epilogue

**Two chapters posted in one go, so don't miss chapter 22 just back there! **

**Thank you so much to all my reviewers, especially the regulars. I may not have always replied, but I took on board all your feedback, and appreciated it. Without you, I may not have bothered to finish this off, but I'm really glad I did. :-)**

Soundtrack (and 'final credits'!): The Eastern Sky - Riyu Kosaka**  
**

_Epilogue_ _- ONE YEAR LATER_

It was dark, but the roof was bathed in floodlight and behind them, an electric skyline picked itself out in blazing windows and neon signs. A cold gust billowed her coat.

"Iie! Iie! Matte!!"

"Don't pretend you don't speak English," Lara ordered, her pistols' aims never wavering from the man's head. "Now I'm sure, as Yakuza, that you are fully aware of how this works. You tell me what I want to know, or my partner here lets your precariously balanced sister fall off the top of this rather tall building."

"Tanaka," the woman cried, tears streaming down her face and her hands clutching at empty air as Kurtis held her on the point of overbalance on the surrounding wall. "Kudasai!"

"Please," her brother begged, holding out an imploring hand. "Don't let her fall. I'll tell you, but please, pull her back."

Kurtis yanked the woman back by her shirt and let her stumble to the ground at his feet without so much as a look.

"The Emporer's Suite, at the Grand Hotel."

"Thank you," Lara said, with mock sincerity, her smile poisonous. She dropped her weapons and took two steps backwards before turning smartly and walking towards Kurtis. A grin on his face, his gun held loosely at his side, he stepped up backwards onto the wall and then just twisted and leapt off the side, arms above his head, letting out a whoop of excitement. Lara laughed, broke into a run, and swan dived after him, plummeting down to the empty swimming pool below.

The End

* * *

**Now you look at Chronicles and AOD and tell me Lara isn't that cold!**

**Thank you for reading!!  
**


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